203. Inside the Implosion of the Platner Campaign

17:43Katty Kay:No question about that. And that's very disheartening.

17:46Anthony Scaramucci:And I think Me Too made it a better workforce for my children, my daughters. So I hope I actually think it did a lot.

17:51Katty Kay:Oh, well, and I would say the same thing for my daughter and my wife, frankly. So, Katie, having said all that, I just want to make it very clear. These are my opinions, and he has denied all the allegations, and nothing has been proven, of course, but I think there's a thread here of facts that we have to analyze.

18:07Anthony Scaramucci:They are very difficult to prove, these allegations, and he is definitely blaming the Democratic Party, which, by the way, may suppress voter turnout in November because he is saying to his people, they punished me, the Democratic Party punished me. I suspect you're going to see low turnout from Democrats in November because of the way this has been handled.

18:27Katty Kay:And Susan Collins is going to be concerned.

18:29Anthony Scaramucci:And Susan Collins is going to have very many more years in the Senate being concerned. We're going to come back and talk about NATO.

18:57Anthony Scaramucci:at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required, $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.

19:12Anthony Scaramucci:Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US. Anthony, it looks like we are back at war with Iran. Are we back at war with Iran? What's going on? They are now scum, apparently. The people who were a couple of weeks ago were normal and reasonable, the Iranian leadership, Donald Trump has now said they are scum and he can't deal with them.

19:35Katty Kay:Sick. They're sick people, according to Trump. Again, these are factual statements, meaning Trump is saying these things. I'm not saying they're true. I'm saying Trump is calling them sick. So, you know, the market for me, I always watch the market. So the market when the MOU was signed in Versailles, ho-hum, slight blip up. The bombs are getting launched again, ho-hum, slight blip down. And I think people think that we are in a quagmire and we are in a permanent war with Iran. That's not going to get resolved anytime soon. And so how long will it go, Caddy? I don't know. But I would imagine that you and I will be talking in December about fits and starts with the Iranians.

20:17Katty Kay:And so their economy is devastated. There's no question about that. And they need to sell oil. And so, but they'll string this thing along as long as they possibly can. And whether the president wants to admit this or not, he's hamstrung in terms of his game theory strategy. There's only one real thing he can do, and that is to put ground troops in, 600, 700 ,000 ground troops, and stay there for three or four years to gut the country, which he's not going to do. So I don't see this changing anytime soon. If you disagree with me, please chime in.

20:52Anthony Scaramucci:I think that's right. I had a very interesting conversation with General Mark Hertling, who was former commander of US forces in Europe just this morning. And he was saying that the problem here is that the White House kind of fooled itself into thinking the memorandum understanding was actually an understanding between the US and Iran, when in fact, it was a misunderstanding on America's part. Iran always thought it was going to have control of the of Hormuz, and that has now given it leverage. He called this an asymmetric war at the moment, where Iran is, as you say, the weakened country militarily, but is stronger because of this leverage it has, not necessarily of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, but just of spooking tanker insurers.

21:37Anthony Scaramucci:I think that's what's critical. All it needs to do is do a few attacks, and these multi-million dollar tankers are not going to go through because they don't want to risk them being attacked, having a hole in them, and then having to take them off the market, sitting idle for a while. So, I think that was interesting. I had such an interesting conversation with the great Kim Gattas, his journalist for the Financial Times, who reminded me of something that President Nasser had said. And this is how he put it. He said, the genius of you Americans is that you never make a clean, stupid move, only a complicated, stupid move.

22:15Anthony Scaramucci:And that has the rest of us wondering if we've missed something. And I think that's the feeling in the Middle East is, were the Americans just so stupid? Because I think at the beginning, they were all thinking, is there kind of nine-dimensional chess going on here? Does Trump understand something we don't? Whereas actually, I think this was just a complicated, stupid move. And we can talk about Ukraine, they have used up a ton of interceptors. They have caused more volatility. Security experts on the region are saying to me there is now a greater risk of a broader war in the Middle East because you've got a split between the Saudis and the UAE.

22:55Anthony Scaramucci:You've got a split within the UAE. The chances of rapprochement between Israel and the Saudis is minimal. So, I think they've, you know, they've left a real mess. However, this resolves itself around the MOU or ceasefire or not ceasefire. The long term implications, I think, Anthony, of this are pretty bad for the region.

23:14Katty Kay:It's not going to end. And so the question is, where will oil prices be at the end of the year? And I'm just letting people know they're going to be likely higher, and you're going to see probably rate increases. And even if Trump is going to mouth off at the new Federal Reserve chairman, it's not going to matter. He's got no choice but to increase rates. And there's something going on that people really should understand from outside the United States, and that is the processes of the American government. So the board of governors, even those that have been appointed by Trump, are saying, yeah, we got to increase rates.

23:48Katty Kay:So just need everybody to know that. The board of governors of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve. So it's not just Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chair. They're all looking at it and the market's signaling that and trump is going to have to back off of that additionally dai and cia defense intelligence agency and the central intelligence agency are still generally running the military footprint of the military strategy for us and they're helping ukraine uh and so trump is now trying to take credit for that even though he doesn't deserve any credit for that they're leaking from the white house that trump is approving of this stuff what did you

24:22Anthony Scaramucci:make of the Zelensky-Trump meeting? I thought it was interesting about how he said that they are now going to allow the Ukrainians, which they've been asking for for a long time, the license to build Patriot missile interceptors in Ukraine. I love Trump. And that he hadn't even told the defense contractors yet. He hadn't even told the companies yet. I'm telling it to you first, like it's some big kind of inside secret that he was telling them. But Hurtling's take on that was that this was just a bit of interceptor washing and it would take months, if not years, for the Ukrainians to actually build those patriot systems.

25:03Anthony Scaramucci:They need them now. They are getting hammered by the Russians in their civilian areas right now. They need to be able to protect their population. And that these licenses are just a way to say, well, look, we gave them the licenses. We're not actually giving them the hardware because, by the way, we've used all of them up or too many of them up in the war in Ukraine, which was a war of choice that was not particularly successful. But anyway, we used up a lot of our hardware. But don't worry, Ukraine, because we're giving you these licenses, which are not actually going to help you for a long time.

25:30Anthony Scaramucci:Do you think Trump's had a change of heart on Ukraine generally, because he sees the Ukrainian winnings, and now he wants to get on the winning side?

25:37Katty Kay:No, I think you just gave the insight. And I think that's the central thesis that I'd like to underline. Give them the licenses without giving them the materiel. It takes him forever to build the Patriot missiles anyway. But I think Zelensky's tell was really when he said when Trump, you got to love Trump because he just is a slave and a knave to Vladimir Putin. I talked to Putin for 90 minutes and we should meet in Moscow. And of course, that would never happen. And Zelensky said, yeah, I probably shouldn't go to Moscow. There's a lot of Ukrainian drones in Moscow.

26:09Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah, I'm not going to Moscow. It's not safe these days. Yeah. Yeah.

26:12Katty Kay:It was just such a deadpan actor's delivery. And it was loaded with irony, but loaded with truth. But I'll say this, Ukraine is the quiet success story. Because, you know, the Allies pledged$70 billion of Euro military equipment training for Ukraine in 2026. They have a commitment. Europeans do to at least doing that much in 2027. And Trump is out of the frame, Kat. This is happening without him. And so, you know, weirdly, the Europeans responded. Trump said, you're not paying enough. Mertz has acknowledged that we're not paying enough. Rutta, I mean, I've already said my piece on him, so I'm not going to be overly critical of him here, but I am generally overly critical of him.

27:00Katty Kay:He's calling the trillion dollars of new European spending the Trump trillion because he's always trying to, you know, insert himself into, you know, where and Trump's, you know, what. But in any event, I just think that Ukraine is going to survive. I think this war, this war also goes on until the end of Trump's term. You have to tell me who wins the presidency after Trump. If it's a, if it's somebody that believes in the alliance and somebody that believes in the strength and freedom of Europe, which I'm assuming it will be, They're going to shove Putin very, very hard here. And I believe that Putin's regime will collapse as a result of that.

27:38Katty Kay:And then the question is, who replaces Putin? But, you know, it's getting late early out there, to quote Yogi Berra. It's getting late early out there in Moscow. And I think there's trouble. And I think Zelensky has the upper hand right now. And people should realize that he got the upper hand because the Europeans responded while Trump was doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin.

28:02Anthony Scaramucci:The Europeans realized the threat from Russia. And I've had a couple of texts this week from a European Union official who said, look, there is real concern that as Russia comes to the realization that you've just made, that Ukraine is winning this, does Russia try to test the alliance? Does Russia push somewhere? They're already involved, I'm told, in kinetic warfare, in cyber attacks around Europe. But would they actually go as far as to go for something militarily, take a nibble at the edge of NATO? Because their ultimate aim, Vladimir Putin's ultimate aim is to destroy the NATO alliance, to destroy the European Union, to destroy the Western alliances that have held since the Second World War.

28:46Anthony Scaramucci:And would he like to just take a little nibble and see how the Americans respond? Because the Europeans aren't there yet. Yes, they're pledging the money. They still don't have the capacity. And that's going to take a little while longer. Okay, before we go, Anthony, we have an exciting new project to talk about that you have been part of with me. I have a new show that is launching on Goalhanger. It's a fun series that I'm doing called Doing It Anyway with Katty Kay. And it's looking at the question of how we can become better workers, better leaders, have more confidence in the workplace. I've got a great range of guests.

29:23Anthony Scaramucci:I'm talking to Adam Grant, a professor from Wharton, who's fantastic on leadership and confidence. I'm speaking to Ali Love, who is the Peloton instructor, who was so great about overcoming hurdles in her own life to become what she is today. You joined the program, which was so fun, talking about the importance of reaching out to people, asking people for help. As you know, I've worked on the whole issue of confidence and leadership for years. This is a series I've wanted to do for a long time. So I'm really happy it launches on Friday this week.

29:56Katty Kay:First of all, congratulations. Super excited about the show. I want to go to the title for a second, if you don't mind. Yeah. Doing It Anyway. You're really good at this, Katty Kay. So why that title? Tell us the elements of what is in the show that's reflective of that title.

30:12Anthony Scaramucci:A lot of the issue around confidence, I think particularly for women, we have found in our research, and I've been researching this for years, is that when you suffer from a kind of lack of confidence, you don't think you can do something, you have a choice. You can sit back and be passive and not take risks and not ask for that pay raise or not go for that promotion or not ask for that stretch assignment because you might not get it. Or you can try. You can try and do something even though it could lead to failure. And I think it's that idea that, yeah, everybody is afraid. Everybody has moments, even you spoke about this, Anthony, where you're afraid of taking a risk, where you're worried that it might not work out.

30:55Anthony Scaramucci:And I think the key for women, but also for men too, is to do it anyway. But you joined the program. Did you enjoy the discussion? We spoke a lot about how you have overcome failures in your life and you've done it so well.

31:08Katty Kay:You're a lot cheaper than my therapist, Katty, so I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to be in the confessional with you. But I want to talk about failure for a second. Because one of the things that I admire about you among many things is the honesty about this issue. And explain to people in your experience, interviewing all these people, your own life story, why do we feel fear failure so much? And again, this is universal in my opinion. I have yet to meet a person who's being brutally honest, that doesn't say yes there's elements of my personality where i fear the failure now i have failed and i've triumphed in my life and i can tell you that when i'm failing i still feel miserable about it i don't want people to think oh you know i'm a big i got the big boy pants we'd all much rather never fail yeah but why the fear of it i'm not talking about the actual failure i'm like okay katie you're about to embark upon something it could succeed or fair but we have so much anxiety about the failure.

32:11Anthony Scaramucci:Look, I think there are different things. I think for women, perhaps more than for men, there is a desire to be perfect, whether that's conditioned into us from centuries of needing to do that. And every time you take a risk, right, you might screw up. That's just like part of taking a risk. And if you want to be perfect, the psychological battering you're going to give yourself if you screw up is that much greater. But I think there's also this sense that failure only happens to us. I mean, this is what I hope people can understand from this series is all of the people we've interviewed have overcome hurdles.

32:46Anthony Scaramucci:It's so universal and yet it feels so uniquely personal. And you feel like the Klieg lights of public opinion are on you when you fail, that everybody's talking about you. One of the great things I remember hearing from a neuroscientist actually was when I was doing the research on this was that, listen, don't worry, you're not everybody else's headlines. People are way too busy getting on with their own lives and their own problems to actually be thinking about you for more than five minutes. And I know that when I've had failures that were very public failures, ended up like you on the front page of the New York Times, I thought, oh my God, this is, you know, I wanted to go into a hole and kind of hide away.

33:26Katty Kay:Nobody remembers or cares. That's the beauty of it. But Katty, does the word rubbernecking translate over to the united kingdom rubbernecking you know this term oh when you're looking at a crash on the road yeah so your rubbernecking is when you're driving and there's a crash and you slow down to observe the crash could be on the other side of the road or could be on your side and so even though the traffic's clear everybody is halted by the rubbernecking and so this is also a sign of human nature that when something catastrophic happens we are vicariously observing this. And so, do you think that's an element of it?

34:03Katty Kay:Do you think that people, oh, wait a minute, you know, I look at catastrophe weirdly and maybe other people will be looking at my catastrophe weirdly. You think there's some rubbernecking in our human nature?

34:13Anthony Scaramucci:There may be some rubbernecking that for a moment, we love the idea of people being brought down a peg or two. I think that's the way we would describe it in the UK. But actually, I generally, I think people want your success. They want you to do well, is my experience of people. I think people are probably more supportive of you than they are destructive of you. There was, I think, the other reason I wanted to do this series now, and it's so timely, Anthony, because we are seeing something of a backlash against women and the promotion of women in the workforce. There's a very interesting story just this week in The Economist talking about how women are sliding backwards in leadership positions.

34:56Anthony Scaramucci:They're getting fewer board seats, more of them are getting fired, they're getting fewer of the top positions. And that's really for the first time in about 20 years or so. So, I think with that anti-DEI, anti-woke backlash is having a real impact on women's fortunes in the workplace, which probably is also then in turn going to make women feel less confident in the workplace, less confident about asking for those promotions, asking for those stretch assignments, which are exactly the kind of things you need to do to get ahead in the workplace. So it's a vicious circle. And one of the things that we found in our research that women find particularly bad, and actually we went out around the streets of London and were asking women about this, is asking for a pay raise.

35:36Anthony Scaramucci:And this week's episode, the first episode of our series of Doing It Anyway, is with Mika Brzezinski, who is a good friend of mine. She's host, of course, you know her from Morning Joe, but she's also written extensively on how women can ask for a pay raise, how we can do this thing that is particularly difficult. So that's our first episode coming up. Anthony, have you got wise advice for anyone negotiating a pay raise?

36:01Katty Kay:Well, I mean, the first thing I would say to everybody is listen to this show. It's going to be on the US feed here. So the rest is politics, US feed. So stick around and listen to the show. But I would tell people that in the world of corporations and everything that I've learned, you know and your boss knows when you need a raise. And so you know it. It's just in your gut. And so when you feel that, it's okay to ask. But if you're pushing for something that you don't deserve, don't do it. But I'm telling you, everybody knows. I have found that I'm getting to the point of giving somebody a raise right at the same point that they are in most times in my career.

36:44Katty Kay:And so I would just tell you, you know in your gut when it happens.

36:46Anthony Scaramucci:There's a lot of research in the series, but there's also a lot of practical advice from really these fantastic top psychologists, top leaders, top sports figures. So I hope you'll enjoy it. So do tune in. You'll see it right here on your Rest is Politics US feed, Doing It Anyway with Katty Kay every Friday this summer. Tell your friends and family. Thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back next week with more American Crazy Politics.

37:14Katty Kay:See you next week, guys.