90. Why Elon Musk Was Fired By Trump

25:59They're not. Nothing's actually changed. It's easy to be it's easier to be a candidate and promise the world. But now the president is in the hot seat and has to deliver. And I think it's easier for Howard Lutnick to make these arguments because he's a professional salesman. He's one of the best salesmen out there. It's significantly harder for Scott Besant to make these arguments because he is a macroeconomic investor. And every time he comes on television and you see his teeth chatter and you see him start to sweat, it's because he knows he's performing for a party of one and has to justify arguments that make absolutely no sense.

26:37And he's shivering because he's watching his former peers, competitors and allies look at him and shake their head, saying, we wanted you to get the Treasury secretary job. We called Trump and said, choose him, not Lutnik for Treasury secretary. He's far more qualified for the job. And now he's in that job having to tap dance on TV. Listen, it wasn't a mistake when Scott Besson earlier this week was talking about China and said the talks have slowed down with China. But I believe that when Trump speaks to she, he's going to solve things. I actually think that is Scott Bessent cleverly trying to pass the buck and take the blame off of himself and saying, I can't do anything with this.

27:18But you, Supreme Master Trump, you're going to get it done. So when the Trump has this call with she and it doesn't get done, no one can say, what was Scott Bessent doing? He's going to say, well, I gave it to the grandmaster president for him to do. OK, well said. And you asked me to channel some Howard Lutnick. You know him very well. We've got Wall Street, we have all kinds of - Special people. No, we got all kinds of nicknames for Howard. It could be Butlick. There's all different - It could be Coward, Butlick. There's all different types of things that he's now being called on Wall Street.

27:50And by the way, I like Howard, but he's lost the plot. And he looks very disingenuous on television. He doesn't listen to my podcast. But if he did, I'd say, dude, cool out. You're embarrassing yourself and your family. Take it chill. you don't even sound like the person that I once knew and cut it out. You got too much Potomac fever. Take three real rational aspirins, right? You need rationality to combat Potomac fever. But that's what I would say to Howard. What if he's laughing at us though? What if he's making so much money in crypto? What if he's making so much money in the markets that he's laughing at us, Marie Antoinette style.

28:29All right. It's just bad karma. What you find when people do this, look at Russia. When you find when people want to get up close to the government and take a funnel and pour economic rent out of the government into their own coffers, it hurts them. It hurts the country. It makes the place weaker. Okay. For me personally, I don't want to live in a bob-wired security compound in some big McMansion while my fellow neighbors are suffering. Okay. It's just very bad public service philosophy to make it about your personal profit. But I want to go to another trade piece, then we'll take a break. But I want to go to another trade piece and I want you to react to this.

29:10Okay. And I'm going to be dramatic here, Stephanie Rule. It's 2.17 AM, June the 4th, 2025, 2.17 AM. Coming in from at Real Donald Trump on Truth Social. I like President Xi of China, always have and always will, but he's very tough and he's extremely hard to make a deal with. Okay, react to that. 2.17 a.m. My reaction, SNL season 51, call Anthony Scaramucci. You have your next person doing an impression of Donald Trump. I mean, what is going on? Dude, Mr. President, what are you doing? Okay, so it turns out even the New York Post, which is our very famous tabloid rag here in New York, has called out Trump.

30:01Mr. Trump, look at me. You got no cards. Okay, the Chinese have the cards. They've got the rare earth minerals. You can't build the missiles. You can't build the F-35s without their rare earth minerals. And they stopped shipping them to you. So now what do you want to do, sir? Go ahead. Excuse me. What would you like to do? Listen, Anthony, what Donald Trump is, is a great political performer. But the problem is, everyone has said, well, now, you know, the business guy is going to negotiate. Everyone should just bring the actual author of The Art of the Deal on TV every day, all day and yesterday.

30:38There isn't an art of the deal. Donald Trump's greatest success was not in business negotiations. Now, if you are a mid or a high level New York real estate developer, do you know how to negotiate in a way to stiff your contractor from Queens? Do you know how to underpay the real estate broker you said you were going to give a bigger cut to? Sure, they don't have any leverage. Just like lots of very small countries right now have a lot less leverage with the United States because they need our consumer base. They need all of our companies to buy their products. But China doesn't. And China, listen, don't get me wrong.

31:17We are suffering. China is suffering. President Xi is not leaving office. He's in that job for life. And he is very comfortable with his people suffering. That's not the case with the United States. And I do think President Trump has miscalculated the cards he has as it relates to China. And I don't know how he elegantly gets out of this. I actually thought last week, and I had a big source who's relatively close to Scott Besson, when the court last week called Trump's tariffs illegal, a source said to me, oh, my gosh, Scott Besson is in his house in D.C. on his knees praying to God saying, thank you.

31:53This is the elegant exit that will save us from this tariff war. Because Trump can say, I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it for the American people. I wanted to do it for the American worker. But the court system stopped me. I should have more power. I should be able to do this. But I couldn't. This stinks. That would have been his way to get out of this, to say to his base, I was going to do the tariffs. I wasn't lying about it. That's what I wanted to do. They wouldn't let me. I can't stand this division of power. But instead, he's doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on the tariffs. And that's what's interesting about, you know, this taco nickname.

32:28Everybody's laughing at Trump and, you know, Trump always chickens out. But big investors I speak to don't want anyone saying taco because they don't want, even though they believe it, they don't want Trump backed into a corner, embarrassed and lashing out and putting more tariffs and getting more aggressive. They want him to be as calm as possible. And they want him to be looking for an exit strategy. And so far with a tweet, with a truth social post at 2.17 a.m., come on now, that's not a good move for a poker player, a business leader, a lawmaker, or a boyfriend. You got the boyfriend in there.

33:05I was impressed with that. Listen, when your boyfriend's texting you at 217, something that makes no sense, you got problems in that relationship. Yeah, I think so. I definitely think so. So listen, I'll just say this to you about taco. It's taco always, and it's taco anytime. And no matter what happens, it's always going to be taco. He's going to chicken out. just has to. Even if you say taco, taco, taco, taco to his face 27 times really fast, he's still going to chicken out. We're going to have a break right now and then we're going to talk about China and the United States. Who is the bigger superpower globally today?

33:42We come right back from the break.

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35:23we are back from the break is rest is politics us it's anthony scaramucci i'm joined by stephanie rule the host of the 11th hour on msnbc she's filling in for katie k uh stephanie you're in fuego today so i gotta ask you the big question who's a bigger superpower is china the bigger superpower now on the world stage? Are they taken more seriously than the United States? Or where are we at this moment? Listen, I'm never betting against the United States of America. We're at a very difficult time that I think that we have lost a great deal of credibility with President Trump in the White House on the world stage, with how he's approaching foreign policy, with how he's approaching trade, with really the United States just standing by our word and being a dependable partner, right?

36:13One of the reasons people always want to do business with the United States is because we respect the rule of law. Now I can remember, this was like eight years ago, interviewing Steve Schwartzman of Blackstone, of all people, in Davos, a favorite place of yours. And I remember asking him about doing business in Russia. And he said, we don't do business in Russia. We don't do business anywhere where we can't trust the rule of law. Well, that is how people are now looking at the United States, right? For years and years, you would do business here because you trusted how the government worked. At no point does the government walk in and say, I'm going to take that business from you.

36:49This isn't going to work anymore. So are we still extraordinarily powerful? Sure. But the things that are happening over the last 135 days are hurting us on the world stage. And China is quietly amassing more power. whether they are putting together trade deals with other countries or if they're stepping in where USAID walked away. Right. For everybody who thought that USAID was just this do good, feel good. Let's help starving kids in Africa. There's scores of people who would say, like, why are we giving money to poor people in other countries when we've got poor people in the United States?

37:25Because it's about strategic soft power. It's about ensuring that all of those countries understand the importance of Western democracies that are our allies when they want and need them to be. Well, go to lots of those places around the world and see who's building their roads and bridges now, even before pulling out of USAID. It's China. China is building its relationships around the world with countries that have been our allies forever. Would I say that China is more powerful than the United States today? No, I wouldn't say that. I mean, I love our country. I root for our country. I believe in our country today as much as I ever have.

38:02But make no mistake, China is getting more powerful and more strategic while we are putting on a show with no consistency. Everything that you said, I do agree with. I guess what I'm astonished by is that there are other leaders in the American government. There are three separate articles of the Constitution, and there is a Senate and the House of Representatives, and there are state governmental officials, and we have this wonderful decentralized government in a fairly free country. And I'm just wondering why no one in the political leadership is saying, whoa, I'm sorry, I have to stand up to this.

38:39You know, my name is John Thune. I'm the Senate majority reader. As you were saying this, my whole body was going, John Thune, John Thune, John Thune. Where are you? Where are you, John Thune? Yeah. What is he doing? You know, I mean, so he's the new Kevin McCarthy, right? Because he doesn't want to stand up to this. And Thune tells his buddies, because, you know, I still give money to some of these senators. And they say, oh, we got to wait for the big one. We can't do anything right now. We dislike Donald Trump, but we're so afraid of him politically. We've got to wait for the midterms to expire before we can assert ourselves.

39:11And this is the reason why when John Kennedy wrote the book Profiles in Courage about people jumping the line in their party or crossing party lines to do the right thing for the country, the journalist said, Senator Kennedy, this is a very thin book. He says, yeah, man, if I was writing Profiles in Cowardice, it would have been the phone book, right? I mean, it's like a little tiny, thin book because nobody's willing to do this shit, right? I keep hearing the exact same thing, Anthony. I keep hearing from sort of big Wall Street investors - They hate them. The kind of guys who are giving no labels tons of money.

39:42They keep saying, just wait, John Thune. John Thune is going to step up, step in. He's the rational one. He's not going to stand for this. And I'm anxiously waiting, but fortunately not holding my breath. Let me ask you this. Play President Xi for a second. Your presidency, you've got the control of your party. You consolidated power a few years ago. Your economy is weaker. We both know that. A lot weaker. There is a banking crisis going on inside the country. There are a lot of hollowed out buildings. There's a little bit of pain in their middle class community. Hollowed out cities. Hollowed out cities.

40:21There's urbanization problem now. and you're him and you want to last, like you said, these guys were here for 5 ,000 years. They're going to be here 5 ,000 years from now. And so they're going to outweigh these people. And they know they have generations of people that have memory of starving themselves in the great cultural revolution. So they can take more pain than a Western population. So go ahead, play she. How do you play Donald Trump and how do you position yourself globally? I mean, I think he has two options, right? Nobody wins in a trade war. People die, everybody's bleeding figuratively.

41:03Who knows when she speaks to Trump, the White House press secretary keeps saying it's coming very soon. She may feel out Trump and behind closed doors, hope and pray. The two of them give a little right, give a little left and find an elegant exit. I think Xi, who has a better hand to play because he doesn't need to get, for all the reasons you just said, can feel out Trump. And if he gets on the phone with Trump and Trump goes full bore aggressive, Xi will be able to say, go F yourself, like, we're going to battle. And by the way, I'm interested in Taiwan. But I think that Xi will have the ability to say to Trump a little bit more, show me your cards.

41:46And given that Trump has the unique distinction of bankrupting an actual casino, I think Trump will show his cards and then she'll get to decide what he wants to do next. Yeah, I think that's well said. Let me ask this question. Hegseth flew to the Asian Pacific Rim and he's saying that a threat to Taiwan from China is, quote unquote, eminent. Is that histrionic or do you think there's an eminent threat to Taiwan? I don't know. I think there's the definite possibility. And I think if you're Taiwan, you're a lot more scared than you were four years ago, even eight years ago during Trump's first term.

42:25Anyone outside the continental United States who has always believed that the United States has their back no matter what can't feel that way anymore. So I think it's a scary time. But do I think it's eminent? Do I think it's posturing? Who knows? But I don't know that what Pete Hegseth says is necessarily true. I don't know. I'll give my opinion here because I talk to a lot of people in the Chinese citizenry. I have a lot of friends in Hong Kong, friends on the mainland. I think there's one big legacy issue that people have to be aware of for President Xi, given his life story. Father sent into exile by Mao.

43:06Xi himself, years of deprivation as a young adult as a result of his dad's exile. The family, the Xi family now returning to power. He is the president of the country. He is a successor of Mao. And of course, one of Mao's stains on his legacy historically is he couldn't reattach the island of Formosa, now known as Taiwan, back to the mainland. And he had Western leaders protecting Taiwan. And so to have a legacy that's better than Mao's legacy, you would want to be known as the leader that reattached this. And you don't want to lead during pain. And by the way, I'd like to note for any listener out there who thinks Anthony Scaramucci is just some guido from Long Island, you are unbelievably smart and a guido from Long Island.

43:58I am also a guido from Long Island. It's like goodwill hunting over here, Steph. But I mean, hopefully my producer will leave that in. But let me just go back to this because I think this is very important. The other side of it is, hey man, I'm the caretaker of a 5 ,000 year old civilization. Macau, the Portuguese reign on Macau ended. Hong Kong, the UK reign on Hong Kong ended. It ended peacefully. Is there a way to reattach the island peacefully. And there are, believe it or not, people inside of the political system in Taiwan that actually want that. Now, that's not the majority of the people, but there are people.

44:41And so I'm just wondering, as China continues to transform itself, will those two interests intersect where they have a peaceful reattachment? And again, I'm not channeling President Xi. I have not met him. I was in Davos with him briefly in January of 2017. Did he come to your wine party? No, he didn't come to the wine party, but he gave a great speech. And I went to see the speech, and he gave a great speech. And I can't say that I met him. I met several of his foreign dignitaries at that event, because I was part of Trump's transition team at that time, January of 2017, before the inauguration.

45:21But he strikes me as a guy that could be a long-term thinker on this issue. So I don't think the threat is eminent. That's just my personal opinion. But you did ask me my opinion of them as a superpower, and I think they're handling themselves. I'm not in love with their system, and I'm not suggesting that our system has to be transposed on their system. We can't do that. We've learned from history that that never works. I'm not in love with their system, but I respect their system. And I think they're operating way more rationally on the world stage than we are right now. And I'm just wondering why our political leadership away from Donald Trump, he's a person of one, why we're allowing him to control this symphony at a time in American history where we really shouldn't be doing that.

46:14We need to sort of restate our vision and reposition ourselves. And you see that Trump does silence people, right? I can tell you in the last three months, I have more sources that are high level, super successful business guys who in any other time would be publicly speaking their views on domestic policy, on foreign policy, on the White House. And they have more opinions than ever. And I assure you, they want those opinions out there, but they don't want their name or their brand attached to it because they are afraid of the wrath of Trump because they run a business. They run a publicly traded company and they don't want to get, you know, treated like Disney did.

46:59And that to me is chilling and extraordinary. I think about Jeff Bezos, right? Jeff Bezos had no problem publicly criticizing Joe Biden for how he was handling inflation, for how he approached regulation. Jeff Bezos was happy to comment on all of that. It's extraordinary to me that Amazon, it's hugely impacted by the tariffs. Jeff Bezos hasn't said word one. The only thing that we've heard was that that one single morning where there was that, I think it was Axios reporting that Amazon was about to list on their website, you know, the price of an item and then the increased price of the item because of the tariff.

47:38The only thing we heard was that Trump was so upset, he called Jeff Bezos and they said, oh, fake news. It's not happening. It's amazing to me that so many massive stakeholders in the political arena and in the business world who are getting hurt by his policies, are concerned by his policies, know the risks that lie ahead, are not publicly speaking because they don't want to deal with his wrath. And I think they're undervaluing what his wrath and what his policies will do to our future. I mean, incredibly well said, but let me push back for a second, get you to respond to it. So the law firms cave.

48:16Some of the law firms don't cave. They bring a suit in the federal courts. They win the suit. Wall Street Journal reports this week that the law firms that caved are losing clients because people think they're a bunch of babies with the, they caved to Donald Trump. And so, you know, there was a consensus feeling three or four weeks ago, we all have to cave and then board members went to CEOs and said, hey, you have to cave and we all have to cave. But I'm wondering, is that changing now? Are people now saying, well, wait a minute, maybe we don't have to cave. We live in a free country that's got checks and balances and the system is going to save us from this sort of authoritarian mentality.

48:59What say you? So I would say two things. First, when it comes to the law industry, right? When you think about big law firms, you know, you have like M &A law and then you have litigation. If I'm a law firm and litigation is my specialty, I do not know how I cave to Donald Trump and then look at my clients in the eye with an honest face and say, this is what we're great at, litigation. If you're a law firm that specializes in M &A, you're basically private equity adjacent and you're here to do any deal that comes your way. But the biggest problem I see with the law industry, and I'm going to criticize the media next, they killed each other.

49:40The first law firm Trump went for was Paul Weiss. If when he went for Paul Weiss, every other major law firm picked up the phone and called Brad Karp and said, we stand with you. We're in this together and we lock arms. Nobody would have had to fold and Trump couldn't have taken them down. But instead, as soon as he went for Paul Weiss. Every one of Paul Weiss's competitors picked up the phone and called to steal their clients. So because they tried to eat each other, now they're all getting eaten. And I would give the media equivalent. Early days in the Trump administration, I think it was when Trump wanted to kick the AP out from the press pool when the AP wouldn't call it the Gulf of America.

50:20If the rest of TV media or media in general that show up would have said, we're not showing up for a week, Trump would have folded. You know this better than I do. It was somebody in the last administration who told me, Donald Trump's favorite hour of the day, most important hour of the day is when the TV cameras are on him. Yeah, no question. It's like oxygen. But if the press said we're walking out in unison because this isn't right, then he would have folded. But alas, much like the legal industry, we didn't. Okay. So listen, we don't get to talk to each other that much. It's coming down to the final minutes of this podcast.

50:59So I am channeling my e-channel hosting skills. And I'm going to have a spill the tea segment with Stephanie Ruhl. It's three minutes long, Stephanie. So make it tight. Make it tight. Okay? Okay. I'm going to mention four people to you. And I want you to spill tea on them up or down politically. Where are they going? Where their heads are at? and let's start with number one. This is going to be short because I don't know. All right, but you're going to have some tea because you're good sourced. Okay. So spill some tea. Marco Rubio. Frustrated. He's frustrated, but lots of people who backed him were.

51:39Remember, he got a huge amount of support of like, here's a guy who's actually equipped to do this job and he's kind of sitting in a position like holding tight. Unclear what's going to happen to Marco Rubio. I'm sure he's feeling frustrated and a lot of people are disappointed in him right now. He's in a difficult position. All right. So I think he's finished. I think he's Mr. Capitulator. I think he's finished. He can't be president of the United States if you're that big of an equivocating askus, or that's just my opinion. Okay. Let's go to number two, Senator John Thune, spill tea. He has lots of big money backers who would give him even more money right now if he would actually stand up and say, this is who the Republican party is and give them a chance to break into their George Bush era and find their lane.

52:24When and if he's going to do it, unclear. I'm waiting for it, but I'm not holding my breath. Profiles in cowardice. I think he's also finished. Okay, let's go to Scott Bessette, Secretary of Treasury. He's all in. He's all in. He can't get out. He's a really smart, really qualified guy who's being forced to justify and defend positions and policies that aren't based in truth. I don't know what his exit strategy is. Okay, so again, another guy. that's finished. The tongue comes out of his mouth, either like a bow tie or a pretzel, depending on the day and depending on what channel he's on. It's just unbelievable, the line.

53:00Last, but certainly not least, changed his name three times, but he's now known as Vice President J.D. Vance. Go ahead, spill the tea. Oh my goodness. Listen, what do I think he ultimately wants to do? Hang tight, hope that the president rides through this and he wants to run for president with Don Jr. as his VP candidate. How he's going to do that, who knows? For everyone who's saying, where's J.D. Vance? Is he hiding out? I don't think he's hiding out. You never really know. The VP is never in the spotlight. He's going to hang on for dear life, hope Trump survives and try to run with DJT Jr.

53:35by his side. Well said. He's got a problem with the Catholic Church. He knows this. He sure does. He's visited the Vatican twice. He knows that former Cardinal Prevost, now Leo XIV, sort of upset with him. He took a shot at my colleague, Rory Stewart, and the Pope defended my colleague, Rory Stewart. God bless the Pope. Before I let you go, any truth to the rumor that the Pope is coming to Chicago for a million person mass on June the 14th, the same day as Trump's military parade? Is there any truth to that? I have heard this. I don't know if it's going to be the case, but I'm very excited about this Pope that the Catholic Church chose a man who, the Catholic Church chose a missionary, an American missionary who devoted his life to serving the poor in South America.

54:27And in a, I don't know, romantic, optimistic, Catholic way, maybe he is going to be the American that restores humanity and saves us at a time when it seems like we've had a huge loss of common decency and respect for our fellow man and woman. Look, you ended this podcast with putting me into tears, Anthony. All right. Well, listen, Stephanie, I want you to be emotional when you're around me. You know that. But I think that was so beautifully said. We're going to end it right there. This is The Rest is Politics US. Joined by my guest host this week, Stephanie Ruhl. We'll get Caddy Kay back next week for all Caddy Kay fans out there.

55:04We love Caddy and hopefully she still loves me, Stephanie. I don't know. If she's in the south of France this week, I mean, listen, you're fantastic. It'd be tough to come home and visit you next week. All right. Amen. All right. We'll leave it there. Stephanie, thank you for everybody listening in. We have another drop on the Elon Musk show coming up. That'll be on Tuesday of this coming week. We're going to go deeper into why he left the White House and the mark that he's made. And listen, you guys know what to do. Please sign up, become a founding member. Go to the rest is politics, us.com to sign up.

55:42I'm going to sit catty-key on you next week to pound this message home, but be one of our founding members. We've got a lot of exciting, exclusive content for our founding members. And if I still haven't convinced you, you can get this first episode of the series completely free. Just go to the rest is politics, us.com slash musk. Listen in. I'm pretty confident that will entice you. We'll see you next Friday for regular programming. Thank you so much.