267. TRIP US: If Trump wins, what actually happens to America?

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0:49Hello and welcome to the Restus Politics US with me, Anthony Scaramucci. I'm me, Cathy Kaye. How are you, Cathy? I am good. I'm actually in prison. It was a pretty nice prison. That's the prison that Donald Trump hopes he gets into with the plush billers and so forth. I was with the theme of the moment with Hunter Biden and Donald Trump. It's a hotel in Boston that was a Victorian prison and has now been changed into a hotel. It has kind of little Oscar Wilde and the ballad of Reading Jail vibes to it. But probably a little plusher than either Hunter or Trump might see. So our Bostonian listeners know that a Thursday night, that's a hot place that prison.

1:28They have quite a social hour there. Yeah, it's beautiful. Okay, so what do you want to talk about? Look, this week I think we want to start by kicking off obviously with the Hunter Biden verdict. This has been a crazy month for trials and guilty verdict. So we're going to talk about that. He's been found guilty in that federal gun trial. We're going to talk a little bit about how that might be affecting the Biden campaign. And somebody senior in the Biden team because they still seem to be almost weirdly calm amid something of a democratic freak out about poll numbers and how the race is looking for them.

2:04So we're going to kind of talk about whether they have a secret plan or not. And talking of plans, in the second half, we're going to take a look at Project 2025. This is something that a couple of listeners have written into us about. It is the massive detailed 920 page conservative agenda for a Trump presidency. It's got proposals on everything from culling wild horses to banning abortion pills to deporting illegal migrants to restoring conservative values in American schools. The Democrats have announced their own plan just this week to counter Project 2025. So we'll take a look at that too.

2:40But let's start with Hunter Biden. I'm not quite sure. Honestly, Anthony, how this is going to play in November, November still seems quite a long way away. And a lot can happen between now and then that sort of erases the images of this week. I'm not sure many Americans are fully dialed into the details of federal law and how Hunter Biden was accused and found guilty of lying on a form about whether he was a drug addict when he bought a gun. But I do think one thing from that trial is going to stand out and potentially is going to last. And that is the image right at the end of the trial when Hunter Biden was found guilty this week of Joe Biden making a detour in his schedule flying into Delaware, Hunter Biden arriving at the airport and on the tarmac, the two of them have a big hug.

3:29And there is this image of a father who was lost his other son, who lost his baby daughter in a car crash. He lost his first wife in a car crash and his adult son who was struggled with addiction, who has been found guilty on federal charges of this falsifying records to get a gun. And there is something very human. I think about that image and if anything breaks through from this trial, I think it's going to be that sometimes people make their decisions based on emotions, right? And that was a pretty emotional image. Well, I have addiction in my family, unfortunately. And so my older brother has suffered from this several of my other family members.

4:06And it is a very painful thing to see. And so there is a group of people that view it as a habit and a choice. And there is another group of people that view it as an illness. I think if you talk to the neurologist and the neuroscientist, they fall into this is an illness camp. If you get involved with drugs or you are treating yourself, self -medicating yourself for depression or something like that, you end up in this world. One of my closest friends is very close to Hunter. And I talked to him in preparation for this podcast. And he said to me, and I'm just going to give you the summary of it, that Hunter is a tormented soul.

4:42Bo Biden is a brother who died of a glial blast oma, brain tumor. He used to say that he prayed for him every night. He said, from the moment his mother and sister died in the car crash, he was never himself. He's tormented and was tormented by the guilt of his survivorship relative to them. And it was further compounded by his brother Bo's death. So I'm in the camp where this is a very personal issue for the president and a very personal issue for his family. Politically, the president really doesn't have a choice in terms of making the statement that he's going to not harden Hunter Biden. But I'll make a prediction on this podcast.

5:22Winner lose the presidency. Sometime November, December, that sentence will likely be commuted if he does have to go to jail. That's my opinion. And I'll make that prediction here on this podcast. So commuting the sentence is when the sentence can be reduced. And the president has the power either to pardon somebody. The crime goes away, the guilty verdict goes away. Or he has the opportunity to commute the sentence, which would mean that whatever sentence Hunter gets, the president can reduce it. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And of course, commuting the sentence would give president Biden less baggage because the charges and would still be on Hunter Biden's record.

6:02But he wouldn't have to serve anytime if that becomes the case that he has to serve time. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that green Jean Pierre, the White House press secretary, when she was asked about whether this sentence would get commuted by the president, who was already said, as you say, that he won't pardon Hunter Biden. She demured on that. She wouldn't give a comment on that. She said she had yet to speak to him. And I think the White House is giving itself a little bit of wiggle room. The Biden's are very close. They were all there in the court or week. There were lots of them. His daughter testified, perhaps not to his advantage, particularly his ex -wife testified, Bose Widow testified, Jill Biden, I think came out of this.

6:40It's an interesting story of Jill Biden, of course. She's not actually Hunter Biden's biological mother. She's his stepmother and shout out to stepmothers who often get a hard rap. My children have a wonderful stepmother. And she's been an extraordinary important person in their lives, as is their stepfather. So I think seeing Jill Biden in that role and just the Biden standing up straight, accepting the verdict, not challenging it, not questioning the justice system in the way that Donald Trump had done just a couple of weeks before. There is a big contrast at the moment in the public image of these two men and you're right.

7:13Look, not everybody knows somebody who has paid off a porn star to help swing an election. But we all know somebody who has struggled with addiction. And in that way, I think it helps humanize the Biden family. It is this image in contrast. There is Joe Biden accepting the result and there is Donald Trump railing against the justice system. I would say one thing that I think is going to be more problematic potentially for the Biden family when it comes to Hunter Biden. And that is that in the fall, he goes on trial on tax fraud charges for not paying his taxes in California. And I think Republicans are going to use that trial much more aggressively than they've used this trial.

7:54Actually, it's been remarkable the degree to which Republicans have not gone off to Hunter Biden. This is not the trial they want to attack Hunter Biden on. They know about these addiction issues. They know there is a lot of public sympathy for that. But I think you're going to see that turn around when he goes on charges of tax fraud in the fall because they'll use that to get to their overriding message that this phrase that they use the Biden crime family. There is no evidence that the Biden's committed any kind of major corruption crime. Certainly not Joe Biden, but they'll go after the Biden family.

8:24I still don't even read. Do you know why people have not decided yet? We know Joe Biden, we know Donald Trump. What is it that makes people decide? It could be something like that. It could be an emotional image. Well, I think they've decided. I think that they sometimes tell posters that they haven't decided. I think most of the people that haven't decided yet. Well, I mean, yeah, look, of course, statistically there are people out there that haven't decided. Some of those people are going to vote, gatti, some of those people are not going to vote, but I think they generally know. When you do these demographic footprints and you know this, I'm sure our viewers and listeners know this, this election is going to come down to about 600 ,000 people in seven states.

9:08If that, yeah, if that, I'm reckon about 150 ,000. Yeah, there's some unpredictability in the polling, but seriously, it's a very small number. And remember, President Biden won eight and a half million popular vote, but he only got 48 ,000 votes more in those swing states than Donald Trump. So it's going to be a close election no matter what. Just before we go to another topic, just two questions for you, because we're talking about these conspiracy theories, the notion that Biden's a crime family, no evidence of it. They chant that on the right. They're now saying, well, they're going to put Hunter Biden in jail, create symmetry to allow for Donald Trump to also be jailed.

9:49So I think that's a nonsense, but I'd love to get your opinion on that. I mean, the same rules apply to Hunter Biden as applied to Donald Trump, right? It's in a way. It's a nonviolent offense. He's a first -time offender. And so I would think that the judge in both of these cases is going to weigh up those factors against certain, against any kind of push from the political side. I mean, I do think that is really rare. I think there's a chance neither of them go to jail. Over those cases, now listen, if Hunter Biden gets found guilty of the tax fraud cases in the fall, it's possible, I suppose, that then is a second offense.

10:29So is it possible that that increases the chances of him going to jail? One of the jurors, by the way, came out and said he doesn't think that, I mean, it's not up to him, but one of the jurors came out afterwards and said that he doesn't think that Hunter Biden should get jail time and that actually, if his name had not been Biden, and Joe Biden has said this, that if he was not running for president again, if Hunter Biden's name was not Biden, these charges would not have actually been put to trial, that he would never have been put on trial for this. Probably true. Let's see, I'm so reluctant to kind of game the system in terms of the legal things at the moment, just because they're all so novel and so unprecedented.

11:06And we're in such uncharted waters when it comes to legality and the politics of this at the moment that I've kind of reluctant to make a decision. So I don't know what impact this is going to have on the campaign. I don't know that it'll have, it clearly has an impact on Joe Biden personally. It's very painful for him. I don't know that it has a massive impact on the campaign, but one thing that has interested me over the last couple of weeks, because we've had a slew of new polling and we should never really put too much weight on one poll. I mean, you can give me an economist poll showing that Joe Biden is behind and isn't going to win.

11:37And then there's an FT poll showing that actually Joe Biden is doing much better on the economy than he was a few months ago and has closed the gap quite significantly with Donald Trump, he's still a bit behind. So I don't do an FT poll, but there is clearly a little bit of a freak out going on about STEM because I don't know where you still stand Anthony, if you're still in the calm and it's all going to be good, this camp, but it is weird how the Biden campaign and I spoke to somebody this week, that's still pretty calm. I mean, kind of perhaps preternaturally calm, perhaps delusionally calm, as one Democrat said to me last night.

12:12I'll tell you a few things that I don't like if I were in the Biden campaign. And I had also in full disclosure, had the opportunity to talk to several members of the Biden campaign this week related to their ideas around crypto currency and digital assets and what their policy is there. And let me just give you a quick ledger. Donald Trump, he was against crypto. Now he's for crypto. He sees that as a way to gain young voters. Joe Biden has been ambivalent on crypto. Donald Trump hangs out with MMA fighters. He hangs out with these young celebrities like Jake Paul. He's a young celebrity fighter, but he has this energy drink called Prime.

12:51And if you're 14 to 28 years old, you probably have it in your refrigerator and you're drinking it. It tastes disgusting, but my young kids love this thing. And Donald Trump's hanging out with him. Joe Biden is not doing that. I've had to ration it in my fridge too. Yeah, it's gross. What is it? It's disgusting. It is. It's disgusting. Have you tasted it? You're probably too posh to taste. Just admit to me, you haven't tasted it. There's no, my daughter drinks it and it's that and Celsius. And I, you know, have a coffee. You haven't. I love that a bit. No, I just love the fact that you haven't tasted.

13:22Of course, I've had it. It's disgusting. Okay. But anyway, Donald Trump is in a face off with that. You could go to TikTok and see him in a stare off face off and then he's laughing and smiling. You have one candidate relentlessly campaigning, looking like a happy warrior, enjoying himself. And you have the other candidate that is, and almost a Jimmy Carter like Rose Garden strategy. So just a little history perspective. Jimmy Carter was dealing with the Hosses crisis in 1980 and he didn't do much campaigning and he got destroyed by Ronald Reagan come election day. So, so I am worried about it.

14:01I still believe that Biden can win because we're going to get into project 225 here in a second and we're going to get into the ramifications of a Trump victory. Because remember, it's not just Donald Trump. It's an organized group of people that want to push America into what they call the post -constitutional phase of America. And so I believe if this information gets out there and the Biden campaign does a good job of this, I still think it can win. But I don't like the president's energy level, relatives of the former president's energy level or the enthusiasm around the relative campaigns.

14:38Okay, hold on a second because I don't see anything happy warrior about Donald Trump at the moment. All I see is the guy that comes out and rails about the 2020 election talks about vengeance. I mean, he's been on multiple conservative networks where the hosts have tried to get him to say this is not going to be a vengeance presidency. And what does he do? He says, oh no, I think it's fine to have vengeance and that it has to be done. He's angry about the justice system.

15:14I mean, somewhere hot and maybe that was the problem where he spent like 10 minutes talking about shark attacks and falling in the water with the leg. I think it was about electric folks, but there was a weird bit about the woke shark defense squad on the left. I mean, it was it's not happy. This is not Ronald Reagan morning in America stuff. Okay, let me rephrase a enthusiastic passionate grievance. I give you Mr. Scaramucci victimized. Okay, warrior. Okay, but I just think the enthusiasm. Let me re also restate. I think the enthusiasm around Trump's campaign is larger than the Joe Biden campaign.

15:59And you can say, okay, well, they're different personalities. The one guy had big rallies in 2020. The other guy beat him by eight and a half million votes. But there's something going on that I'm not in love with. And this is the Trump amnesia. Okay, people don't remember the full on craziness, the relentless, uh, Twitter activity, the relentless commotion in the government, the constant firings. I'm wondering if the Biden people are going to present or relitigate before the American public. The great thing about Reagan National Airport, the small local airport in Washington DC is that you hang out there for more than 10 minutes, your banter met bump into a member of Congress.

16:38And last night I bumped into a Democrat who I know and I asked her how, you know, concerned are you? And she said, look, it's three things that get you an election. That when you're an election is money, which we've spoken about a lot, it's machine and it's message. She thinks the money they're fine, the machine, and this is where the Biden team say that they have reason to become, that they have built all these field offices. They've got 200 field offices around the country. They've employed 500 staff. They're going to pay canvases, not just volunteers to go and knock on doors and they say that's way more effective.

17:08This is all part of their kind of infrastructure plan. The machine that they have, and they say they are laying the infrastructure out in the swing states. Trump is not even opening offices there. The Biden campaign is very confident about the machinery that they have. But I think you're right. This Congresswoman said to me last night, the message, where's the, what is the message? And I have to say when I speak to the Biden team, a lot of the message is about Donald Trump. Well, that didn't work so great for Hillary Clinton back in 2016. She ran on an anti -Trump. It's all about Donald Trump.

17:37They need a better economic story. They've got to do more with black and brown voters. They acknowledge that black men and Hispanic men are not enthusiastic about the campaign and they've got to find the right messages to get to those people because it's not going to be Joe Biden. So they do say it's going to be very, I mean, they keep saying this, and maybe they just have to say this to reporters. It's going to, because if reporters start saying, Christ, the Biden campaign is anxious, then that would be a big story. But they say it's going to, they know it's going to be very close, but they are confident that when it's a choice between the two candidates, especially when we see them on that debate in a couple of weeks, and we should talk about debate prep because they're already doing that, that they think the public will, you know, that the public will realize that it's going to be a choice between Biden and Trump, and Biden's campaign feel pretty confident that they've got this.

18:23Okay. So let's do a little role play on our podcast. Okay. We're in the inner sanctum of the Biden campaign. The president has some freeze moments. You've seen him do it. He forgets where he is. I spoke to somebody this week who had been in a meeting with him who had seen that in a national security meeting. Okay. So we, we, we, we, and we've seen Mitch McConnell above the age of 80. He's had some freeze moments at the podium. What are the freeze moments? Is something to be more concerned about? Or is it just old age and is old age itself to be concerned about you, but you and I are now his campaign strategists, and we're looking at things like the economy.

19:02It's decent, although people are worried about the inflation. We're looking about Joe Biden's like ability. I think he's still generally has good like ability. And then you've got this culture war going on in the country, which we both know about. But we can't get our president. We can't get our candidate out there on the hustings to argue on his own behalf because he's freezing and he's stuttering more and he's got a broken foot where he's doddering to get to the teleprompter. So go ahead, Cadi Kaye. You're the strategist. What do you do here to help president Biden? Why he's old and he looks old.

19:42You. Okay. Okay. I got to, I got to interrupt you because you're such a Brit and you're so polite. Okay. He looks old. He looks like he's a fossil. He looks like he's in the national museum of American history along next to the T -rexes. I mean, what do he looks old? Listen, I love the guy and he's spending my conferences. He's fossilizing before us. Okay. Go ahead. I mean interrupt. What are we doing, Cadi? You're the strategist. You get as many surrogates out there as you can and you choose your big moments. So that's why they have the debate in June. They want these big set piece moments where they can prep him.

20:16He's going to go to the G -70s there now. He has one fundraiser in California and then the campaign tells me that after that it's heads down preparing for the debate and Joe Biden's taking this very seriously. So you organize these big set piece moments like the state of the union where he can rally. You probably don't get him out there doing certainly not like Donald Trump in a hundred degrees, which it is already at in Phoenix and Las Vegas. You don't get him out there doing that kind of big rally. It's going to be controlled videos and you rely on your get out the vote machinery. This is where them and you and you have that's how and you keep reminding people that he's the president and he's running the country and therefore he's not going to be flying around doing these big rallies and they're argument as well as that look, Donald Trump big did big rallies in 2020 and it didn't translate into him so that's you may get thousands of people turning out for Donald Trump rally.

21:08That doesn't actually necessarily mean that you're going to win the swing states. Look, I don't know. I hear from a lot of Democrats that they are very nervous about this that the racist type that they would have liked to see the polls tightening by now and that they are concerned that the Democratic base, I mean, is one Democrat said to me this week, our voters are lazy. Donald Trump's voters are motivated. So this may not just be about getting that 150 ,000 people in six states. It could be about making sure that our own people also turn out to the polls, which is where the machinery takes them.

21:39Okay, you're the, you know, you've been there and me. I don't know why I'm playing the strategist. I'm the, you know, journalist. You're the strategist. What would you do? I think you're very insightful. That's why I'm asking the question. I love the surrogate idea, but there's something going on where there's a cultural block for these people. Okay, they brought Governor Christie down to meet with the campaign manager to talk about the pay prep. They have reached out to people like me to talk about crypto policy, but in general, they have a ton of surrogates. Younger, fresher faces, business leaders, politicians, our viewers and listeners may know who Adam Kinsinger is.

22:20He's a former House of Representatives Republican midwesterner. Absolutely a borers Donald Trump. He would go out there and help them, but there's a mental block going on with the campaign. I don't want to go to moderate advocates because I think it's going to hurt me on the hard left. That's the impression that they're giving. Now, when you call them out on that, they deny it, but yet why aren't you operationalizing more? Okay, I get it. Joe Biden, D -81, he does look a little frail. He is stumbling a little, but why not operationalize a whole group of people? You have the business community.

22:58Donald Trump is playing that he has the business community. He has a small slice of billionaires who are with him, and we went over this last week because of that then diagram analysis. I'm going to throw him some money. If he wins, I'm protected. If he loses, Joe Biden and his team is not coming after me. But by and large, most billionaires are with Biden. Most business leaders are with Biden. Yet for some reason, Trump is controlling the narrative that he's got the business leaders returning to him. Silicon Valley, they threw a fundraiser, David Sacks. So, purportedly, they raised $12 million.

23:36Yes, 85 % of Silicon Valley is with Joe Biden. How do we not have that information out there? Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman wrote a brilliant essay. You're right. There's front page story after front page story about all the Silicon Valley leaders who are with Trump. But you got 15 % of them. You were at zero last time. That's a bottom -line campaign era. They need to counter their stories. They've got to do that. They're not doing it. The reason they're not doing it is the cultural war. They are so afraid. This month is gay pride month. They're focused on that. God bless them for that. I have no problem with that.

24:17But they're seeding blue collar whites to Donald Trump. Even though the president has put policies in place that have helped blue collar whites, I don't understand how they can't blend the two. If I were their strategist, I say, guys, wake up. You can win this thing, but you've got to get the narrative better and you've got to be less afraid of your hard left. Reagan was not afraid of the hard right. He told people, these are my principles. If it doesn't work, I'm 69 years old. I'm going to go back to my ranch. I love my wife. I'm going to cut brush on my ranch. I'm not going to listen to you guys telling me to curry favor with the hard right.