221. Trump Just Gave Putin Exactly What He Wanted

16:19Anthony Scaramucci:I don't know that a full scale invasion, because they are very tied up in Ukraine at the moment, the stats on how many people are losing something like 1300 Russian dead or seriously wounded every day during August. I mean, this is a bloodbath for them in Ukraine. They need everything they can to fight this winter in Ukraine. But I think what we're going to see more of are these, I don't know that a full-scale invasion, because that feels kind of redundant at this point, you can do an awful lot of damage, which is what the Russians are trying to do with drone attacks, with hybrid warfare, with subverting elections.

16:58Anthony Scaramucci:I think that is the route that they're more likely to try. Okay, we're going to take a break, come back and talk another about the latest around AI. Talking of scary things, Washington is on red alert this week. Oh, except the members of Congress who are out of town and won't be back for a while. And there is no rush to deal with anything, Anthony. No rush, we hear from the Speaker of the House. We'll be right back.

17:36Katty Kay:The great game. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess, uh, Prime Minister. With high confidence, it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

17:52Anthony Scaramucci:They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

17:55Katty Kay:Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!

18:08Katty Kay:We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today. And disseminated into an operation order. Or frago. Or a frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Goalhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my soldier, are you?

18:32Anthony Scaramucci:Sergeant Tom McDuff. Duffy!

18:34Katty Kay:An audio drama journey like no other.

18:37Anthony Scaramucci:Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons.

18:40Katty Kay:Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action thriller. Where Britain plays its strongest hand. He's the best. Against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy! Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

19:11Katty Kay:welcome back to the rest of politics us caddy and i are going on tour guys we're going to see you uh in a city near you you go to the rest is politics us.com look up our trip uh you can ask us questions on that tour uh i'll be signing books caddy take a look at this caddy look at this huh this is my uk the uk version of all the wrong moves look at It is PubWeek. All the blurbs on the back where I had to like blackmail and potentially threaten death and strangle people.

19:40Anthony Scaramucci:I'm still waiting for my check, actually. Is that coming soon for the blurb? Yes, of course it is. Usually there's a fee for these things. Anyway, I'm very excited for you. Congratulations.

19:47Katty Kay:I owe you a finder's fee for not using Michael Lewis when you wanted to. Choosing me as like seventh or eighth in the list. It's fine.

19:54Anthony Scaramucci:Okay. I was going to say congratulations on PubWeek. I'm super excited for you. This is going to be fun. Thank you. It's going to sell really well. All right.

20:01Katty Kay:So we got an AI warning. You're the guru on AI. So what's going on in Washington, Getty?

20:05Anthony Scaramucci:Well, I'm very glad to say I'm not the guru on AI. I'm about as much of a guru as all the people are on Capitol Hill, and they're certainly not gurus. So it's been, I think, a very dramatic week in America. I hate being hyperbolic, but I think we will look back at this week as a turning point in the whole issue around AI and the politics around AI. So we spoke about this on the pod last week, all of the warning signs that were coming out of the AI industry saying, you know, this has to now have checks on it. We need to what's called pace the frontier, make sure this slows down. On Saturday, Dario Amadei, the head of Anthropic, wrote a nearly 4 ,000-word essay in which he laid out a plan for slowing down AI, which included embedding evaluators, getting AI companies in democratic countries to coordinate with each other to slow this down in order to police it more effectively, and then having some kind of global coordination as well.

21:02Anthony Scaramucci:I read the whole thing. And what he says has happened is that over the course of the summer, just this summer, Anthony, AI has been advancing, as he says, drastically faster. And he is concerned, this is what he says in the essay, that a swarm could take over the entire internet within six to 12 months. The essay is really worth everybody reading. It's very sober. But anyway, you're hearing these alarm bells. And now you have Sam Altman, Elon Musk, all saying Dario is right, We need to do something fast. But Anthony, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, he was on Meet the Press this weekend.

21:37Anthony Scaramucci:And what does he say? Does he say we need to go fast? We need to get Congress back? They're on holiday at the moment on recess. Do we need to move fast because this stuff is accelerating every single day? No. Dear Mr. Johnson says, we do not want to rush into anything. We do not want to rush. We want to take this slowly. We want to get the heads of the AI companies who don't agree on anything to talk about this a little bit more. We want a lot more talking, Anthony, and a lot less doing when it comes to AI. I mean, just it was a weekend of head bending extremes.

22:10Katty Kay:Tell him why he's saying that. Why is he saying that, Katty?

22:13Anthony Scaramucci:Well, I mean, he is saying that because the boss, Mr. Trump, also came out this weekend on the edges of his golf tournament in Ireland, totally downplaying the risks of AI. Mr. Trump said, it's going to be great. There are a lot of very negative forces that are bringing up the risks. That's not going to happen. It's going to be great. We're going to win. The winning is going to be bigger than you've ever seen. And we have to defeat China. So Trump is saying something that the rest of his party is now listening to, including people like J.D. Vance and David Sachs, who are dismissing the safety warnings that are coming out as an incumbent's ploy to lock out all of the competitors.

23:03Anthony Scaramucci:So the fight is not necessarily left versus right. The fight is those people who want to accelerate AI versus the people who actually know about this saying, hold on a second, guys. If we accelerate AI, humanity could be extinct within the next decade. And there is Donald Trump saying, no, keep going, because I think, I don't know what you think. I'm just looking at the kind of startups that Jared Kushner is involved in his $30 million AI startup that he launched last year and think there are a lot of people around Donald Trump who think they can make money out of this and so they don't want to slow down.

23:36Anthony Scaramucci:Is that too cynical? Am I being too cynical? Has just the first half of this show made me more cynical?

23:41Katty Kay:You know, I think you're just too nice. I think you're too nice, Caddy. I mean, that's not cynical enough for me. You just cannot be cynical enough for me because all of what you said is true, but there's an underlying factor why the House is closed. It has to do with Thomas Massey, and it has to do with the Epstein Files Transparency Act II that he promised he would push in the House and he would force the House to vote on, which you and I both know. There's over 300 members of the House that would vote on the disclosure of these files and let state attorney generals and victims and members of Congress sue the Justice Department for releasing the files.

24:22Katty Kay:They failed to release the files and follow the rules. And so what did Trump say to his lackey Johnson? Close the House. Send them all home. So the house is going to be open for four days, and that's the only time we're going to have between now and election day so that the Epstein situation is completely crowded out. So you want the AI to kill people? I don't care. I don't want those Epstein files getting out, and you're going to make that happen. And so he'll blah-dee-blah on Sunday news and all that other stuff. Everything you said is true, but you got to understand Massey only has until January and his number one goal is to get those files out and their number one goal is going to be stopping him.

25:11Anthony Scaramucci:So Massey has told me he thinks the files are never going to come out and that the Justice Department will stop it. I'm going to push this one step further, though. I think there is definitely that is why House is out because they don't want the files to come out. you do have some bipartisan cooperation on this you've got ted lew a democrat nathaniel moran a texas republican trying to introduce the kill switch act um they there are a few members of congress that understand the urgency of this but i am not convinced anthony that even if congress was in session session even if they were called back into session there is either enough political will enough institutional knowledge of what ai really is and what the risks are and enough young people who get the tech to actually do anything.

25:57Anthony Scaramucci:How much confidence do you have in Washington's ability, even if they were not the Epstein files, to actually move fast and put in some kind of regulatory framework? And even though Johnson says, we don't know what to do and the AI companies don't even understand it, that is not true. There are people like Amadei who have proposed frameworks, how much confidence do you have that Washington would be able to get its shit together and do anything fast about anything at the moment? Because I don't.

26:32Katty Kay:I have low level of confidence, but there's a very popular figure in the Democratic Party, and his name is Barack Obama. And President Obama - That was interesting, wasn't it?

26:43Anthony Scaramucci:That was interesting.

26:44Katty Kay:He's gone to his buddies in the Democratic Party, his guys. This poll's at 68%. Okay, so 68 % of the American people are calling for a pause, which you and I both know is a very rare cross-partisan issue, the whole thing related to AI. And he believes if the Democrats move on this, consistent with what Dario was saying in his essay, Democratic leadership will be able to rein back in some of these tech donors. And he's also saying privately, Caddy, because I know some of his friends, he's saying, hey, man, whoever breaks on this first gets a populist issue, Caddy, that isn't about the culture war.

27:27Katty Kay:You know the young people and the people that are voting for the Zora Mondani's or even the wackadoodles that are voting for Trump. You know this is a big populist issue, the AI issue. And so Obama is begging his fellow brethren, brothers and sisters of the Democratic Party to take hold of this issue before Trump and his team does.

27:49Anthony Scaramucci:And what's interesting about that is that Obama is very reluctant to wade in. And he did it at a donor event, but he knew it was going to get out. He has not made it a habit to give instructions to Democrats running for office. He's been very hands off. Maybe some people say he's been too hands-off and that he hasn't got involved enough. So to hear him say this could be a winning issue, combine affordability with a real push for AI safety and regulation, and you could make this a popular issue that, as you say, Anthony, I think is popular amongst Democrats and Republicans. But how do you then answer Trump saying it's all going to be great?

28:29Anthony Scaramucci:Oh, and by the way, my son-in-law has investments in this and my kids have investments in this. that's a little aside, but it's all going to be great. Anyway, if we take our foot off the pedal, China is just going to sweep in. Then you have Xi, who is due in 10 days for a meeting with Donald Trump. Xi is also calling out, whether he's believable or not, he is also calling for some kind of international cooperation. You've got Trump saying on the same weekend, whoever wins AI wins. Then this was great. It's an expression I came up with and it's true. And then you've got Xi saying, actually, no, we need some kind of international cooperation on this.

29:07Anthony Scaramucci:I mean, one's talking cooperation, one's talking conquest. So, Katty, all of that I sort of agree with. You mean you sort of agree with because you don't think the China rivalry is real or you think the China rivalry is real and America should not take its foot off the pedal in order to stay ahead of China?

29:24Katty Kay:I think the China rivalry is real, but I think that these guys know they can create the same way if you have a quantum computer. I can create quantum resistance to protect the encryption from being broken by the quantum computer. They know they can create large language models that effectively check and balance all of the different large language models that are out there, including the Chinese large language models. They know that. And I know that. The question is, are they willing to do that? Because what that does is it liquidates their power, right? That creates more decentralization in the marketplace than any of those guys really want.

30:08Katty Kay:because remember they're all motivated by profits and you know more decentralization means that you'll have a flatter profit scale and you'll have less margins okay so that's another big debate that's going on but my question to you and this is a very cynical question so i want you to put your cynical hat on and think like a wall street person for a minute is this essay really about that or is there an underlying reason that he wrote that essay and the underlying reason is the capex spending for these companies is wildly out of control. They all want to go public. Anthropic is saying they've been profitable the last two quarters.

30:47Katty Kay:Nobody has seen the S1 because they haven't filed a public offering yet. But the question is, are they looking around saying, this is a match sailing race. Let's put out this statement. Let's agree. Let's have Altman and Musk agree with Amadea and let's get the CapEx spending down, okay, leading into the IPOs of these companies so that we'll have more underlying profits to show the investors. And then once we get the public money in place, we can go off to the races again. Am I being too cynical? Because if I am, push back on me.

31:21Anthony Scaramucci:I would say clearly there are IPOs coming up and that complicates it as actually Sam Altman said over the course of this weekend. I read read Amadei's letter, you read the top half of it where he lays out why he's doing this. And it's possible that two things are true at once, that they are thinking about their IPOs. They're thinking about how to stay ahead. They want to exclude others by putting in a regulatory framework that might exclude others. That's what David Sachs is saying, that this is regulatory capture. Look, it's working for me. I don't want other people coming into this. But Amadei has been talking about this for a long time.

32:00Anthony Scaramucci:Elon Musk actually has been talking about this for a long time. And Amadei's argument, and it's not just Amadei, the whistleblowers who are coming out of the companies, they are not trying to influence the IPOs at this stage. They've left, right? There are enough people in the last few weeks who actually understand the technology, who are saying we are getting to a point where this technology will be more powerful than our ability to control this technology. So I think the concerns are genuine. I don't see how you can look at what has happened in the last few weeks and think, oh, this is all just a business play.

32:35Anthony Scaramucci:I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, I would urge people to read Amadei's letter, particularly the top half of it, where he talks about what's happened over the course just of the last few weeks in this technology. And I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just a Marbell moment.

32:51Katty Kay:May not be a business play, but they are benefiting like it is a business play. So again, I'm not trying to be cynical, but these guys act like crocodiles and they act like reptiles. Let's see how this whole thing unfolds. But I do know, and I do believe this, that they will continue on course until regulated. Rom said something the other day. Rom Emmanuel. And I was like, wow, he's totally right about that. So let me share with people. Rom said, hey, I've been in government for 30 years. I've never had one industry come to me in government. White House chief of staff, member of the Congress, worked for Bill Clinton, worked for Barack Obama.

33:31Katty Kay:No one ever came in and said, hey, hello, I'm here to get regulated. Never heard one person say that.

33:37Anthony Scaramucci:It is interesting that actually the heads, the three biggest heads of the three biggest companies are all putting their hands up and say, it is time to get regulated. And maybe you're right. They don't mean it at all. But I actually think I've spoken to people who know these people better than I do, who think actually they would need regulation because otherwise the concern is a kill switch or some kind of political backlash that shuts this whole thing down. And it may be too late for that because these models may be now more powerful than that and won't let us shut them down. But there is certainly a new sense of, it is the only thing in Washington since I've been back that people are talking about, which is new.

34:16Anthony Scaramucci:That's new. It wasn't like that a couple of weeks ago, except for the speaker who thinks we should go slowly. So nothing will happen. By the way, guys, if you're waiting for Washington to do something, go back to sleep, take a nap, take it easy, put your feet up because you won't miss anything anytime soon. Okay, Anthony, shall we talk about something very exciting?

34:36Katty Kay:Go ahead. Your book out this week.

34:39Anthony Scaramucci:Oh, look at that.

34:40Katty Kay:Oh, look at that. Oh, wow. You're promoting, promoting the book. Look at A big shout out to Joe Pickering, who is the marketing person for this book, who's like, could somebody please talk about this book on the podcast? I probably paid the guy the advance so that he would at least mention the book once or twice on the podcast.

34:56Anthony Scaramucci:So go on, you've got a treat for the TripUS listeners. What is it?

35:00Katty Kay:We have put together for you guys a sign up for the annual membership to our club where you will get a free copy of the book once your free trial ends. Okay, so the offer is for new annual UK members who sign up via our website, therestpoliticsus.com. Make sure you check in your inbox for your promo code once your free trial ends. And of course, you'll get our new member series, which is about the book, which is out on Wednesday. And we have a clip, which was beautifully rendered by our production team of all the wrong movies, three-part miniseries. Please listen to the clip. Trump was right. I was wrong.

35:42Katty Kay:I think we're going to have a good night tonight. Three decades, three presidents, three catastrophic errors.

35:48Anthony Scaramucci:And America is still paying that price today.

35:51Katty Kay:If you want to understand how America elected a person like Donald Trump, you have to follow the money. Mistake one, Clinton allows China into the World Trade Organization. The giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country. As we kill our wages, we're going to see lots of dysfunction. Drumbeat starts.

36:08Anthony Scaramucci:Then all of a sudden I saw it go right into the World Trade Center.

36:10Katty Kay:Mistake two, war without taxes.

36:14Anthony Scaramucci:You cannot go to war without making sure that that war pays for itself.

36:18Katty Kay:Because this put us on a deficit trajectory that we can't get out of. And what's left for the American people? Nothing. Mistake three, Obama's Wall Street bailout.

36:28Anthony Scaramucci:10 million American families lost their homes. Bankers, though, got millions in bonuses.

36:33Katty Kay:We handed the cleanup to the men who built the disaster. The populism started because all the money went to the banks. None of the money went to the middle or lower income people. And caddy who exploited every single one of these mistakes. Donald J. Trump.

36:49Anthony Scaramucci:Listen to all the wrong moves, how America made Trump by going to the rest is politics us.com today. Okay, everybody. I hope you enjoyed that. Do join up and become a founding member to listen to the whole series. It's really, really good. It tells us all why we got Trump and just as importantly, how we get out of where we are right now. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back on Thursday. See you then.

37:11Katty Kay:Thanks, guys. We'll see you Thursday.