Anthony Scaramucci: Harris' well-run machine has upper hand on Trump's "testosterone-laden campaign"

This is a transcript of the first interview with Anthony Scaramucci, which took place on 5 September 2024. As such, it took place a little less than a week before the first TV-debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Saxo: What are you seeing or hearing to suggest an outcome one way or another?

Anthony Scaramucci: I can give you both side’s strategies and I can tell you who I think will prevail. Both strategies now are very base related and so let me provide evidence of that - and what I mean by base related is neither side is making any attempt to appeal to what I would call the centrist independent voter there. They're going to let the chips fall where those centre independent voters fall to.

So, the strategy from Kamala Harris is ‘I'm going to focus on my base. I'm going to bring in Tim Waltz who's red meat for my base. I’m going to take hard left positions on a lot of things. I'll moderate a few things like fracking. But what you see with me is a liberal Democratic politician and if you're a liberal Democrat, I want you to come out and vote’.

On the other side is Donald Trump, ‘I'm picking JD Vance who's hard, red meat for my base, and I'm going to double or triple down on things like misogyny. It appeals to the nature of his base, and they think they're running the testosterone-laden campaign’.

They do have a big spread versus her with white male voters and so both sides have said ‘this is a get out to vote election, and I'm going to beat the drum for my base and get as many of my base voters out as possible’.

So, I believe that you have to see this thing from Harris's point of view at this moment, in the following respect. Forty-eight days ago, she was cooking bacon in her kitchen. It was a Sunday morning, July 21st, 2024. She gets a call that she is going to be the presumptive nominee, Biden's dropping out of the race. She needs to go on 48-hour lockdown and lock in these delegates.

Secondary to that, she has to make sure there isn't some type of missile shot at her, or some type of gap that she creates, that causes a Democratic freefall, because they just had a very big internal fight about removing Joe Biden and they're not going to be able to survive a secondary fight about a five-person mini-primary leading into the nomination. So, she locks that down, and she does a very good job of not going to the press. The press wanted her to go to the press, but the people really didn't care. This prevented her from making any seismic or substantial gaffe.

She's gone out and given one interview now. It was a decent interview, it wasn't terrible. I thought her lighting was terrible. She's got to get somebody on the campaign with her to work on her lighting. She doesn't want to look that tired when she's doing these things.

Trump is an entertainer first, he's a politician second. So, he's always got the orange war paint on, he always looks relatively Trump-like at least he's consistent in his look.

I think you have to give Harris credit. She's only been in the race for 48 days, she's put together an economic team, national security team and a fundraising team. She's raised $540 million in the last five weeks. She has a field operation that is much larger than his, she's out manning him two-to-one in the field. She's out-officed him in the swing states, at least two to one, in some cases, three to one, and that is really good for her because that creates organizational opportunity to get the vote out.

So, they're banging on doors ‘are you an early voter? Ok great, here's the ballot, let's get this ballot in ASAP’. You're voting on election Day - that's great. Here's the van. It's picking you up at nine o'clock from the nursing home. Bringing you over to the voting booth. Are you for Harris? Yes, I am, get in the van’. 

Trump doesn't have that, and so Harris also has a registration advantage to him. Her registrations for the Democrats or in the low 30s. For the Republicans, they are in the high twenties, it's like 28 or 29 percent.

Forty plus percent of the registrants are independents, but when you poll that likely voter group, voted in the last two elections or likely to vote in this election, she's got a six-point spread over him.

And I think her campaign sees her campaign narrative starting on September 10th with the Presidential Debate and I think she will go gangbusters after September 10th forming her narrative, using her team to rebuild the Obama Coalition, so I'm going to make a prediction and say she wins the election.

She's been very disciplined on not gaffing and she wins the election because she builds a bigger, broader, more ethnically diverse and more economically diverse coalition than Donald Trump.

His ceiling has never been higher than 47 and a half percent. If he can't get above that, she can generate more than that substantially and so she'll win enough of those swing states to win the election.

That's not my bias, I've endorsed her. It’s my opinion based on the data. Can he still win? Yes, he can. She gaffs, she can blow the debate, she can go for unrealized taxation of the United States. She can make some imbecilic hard left policy. impossible for independents to vote for.

She could do that, but I don't think she's going to do that because she's already moderated her position on gun control. We just had another school shooting in the US, she's moderated her position from what it was in 2019. It was very Australian in terms of her ideas, she's walked away from that, she’s walked away from her anti-fracking and so she's trying to present herself as the middle of the road, moderate Democrat versus a lunatic. That's basically her message.

On his side, he thinks that those seven states are going to fall in his favour because the lunatics that want to vote for him, he thinks he can get them out. He's going to beat the drum on racial dog whistles, he's going to beat the drum that she's a dumb woman, that she can't stand up to Vladimir Putin. And he's going to make the bet that more than expected white male voters are going to turn out for him. He may be right, but that's a much smaller demographic group than her, so she has more potential constituents than he does.

Saxo: And in 16 and 20 turnout was key right in the elections and Hillary probably under-inspired the Democratic base a little bit. Trump inspired key Midwest states to come out, didn't they? And in 2024, do we think it's all about turnout? Because obviously 2020 was high but there was a bit of a referendum on the pandemic and about the reaction to George Floyd’s murder. Is this all about turnout?

Anthony Scaramucci: So, you're thinking of turnout differently than me. Let me provide the distinction. You're thinking about massive numerical turnout. More voters turned out in 2020 than they did in 2016. Trump eclipsed his voter total, he had 68 million in 16, he got 75 plus million in 2020. Biden got 81 or 82 million.

I'm thinking of turnout in terms of the political stripes of the potential people that are voting. Is my base if I'm Kamala Harris going to turn out more than Trump's base or vice versa? If I'm Trump, is my base going turn out more than Harris’ base.

If there's a very large turnout, Harris definitely has the advantage because there's more people on the Democratic register. These are more moderate women voters that want to protect their reproductive freedoms. So, if there's a massive turnout, I think she wins on that.

Saxo: But perhaps this is a different election because it's really the first time Gen Z, a whole new generation, can actually take part.

Anthony Scaramucci: There's 40 million Gen Z's that have been added to the voting scrolls since 2016. Moreover 20.2 million baby boomers have died since 2016. So, you've had this incredible demographic shift in the electorate and that plays better to the younger politician.

Some of the stuff Trump is saying, which worked with Baby Boomers - ‘she's dumb, she turned black’ - they can handle his misogyny and his racism, and they ignore it, but the Generation Z people get triggered by it. They don't like it.

Saxo: In 16 and 20 Trump's base was male, white and old and probably uneducated as well. There is some Gen Z which suggests that in the young males especially, they favour Trump?

Anthony Scaramucci: When Biden was in the race, men of 18-29 favoured Trump by an average of 11 percentage points. Young women favoured Biden by 28 percentage points. Now that Harris is in the race, Trump is plus two with the men, Harris is favoured by 38 now with the women.

But this is good news for Trump, because there's more male voters than there are female voters. So, yes, the 18–29-year-old voter who is white is going for Trump. There's a 51% split, so the question is, is there another group of demographics that she can appeal to in order to keep pace with those numbers, to eclipse those numbers? I think that there are.

If you ask me, honestly, did she have a successful Democratic Convention? She did, but if I was a man from Mars and I landed on planet Earth and those were my first three days on earth, I would have assumed that the United States was 80% black and 70% female from the Democratic convention. So, it didn't appropriately reflect what the actual demographics are in the society. So, she's at risk there. I'm not saying that it's a slam dunk election for her, but I am saying that on the data she has an advantage in terms of the registrations, and she has an advantage in terms of the broader appeal, the wider net that she can cast.

Trump's goal is to hammer down a lot of these red meat, testosterone-laden issues - the border, immigration, the unemployment situation, the economy. These things poll very well for him with that group of voters. And so, his goal is to get as many of those voters through the door.

What we know about white male voters, 18 to 29, is that they don't vote 50% of them, stay home.

Prima facie, it's a close election but I don't think you've seen her narrative unfold yet, and I think they are timing that unfolding of her narrative to be after the debate. She's got a very solid economic team down and a very solid national security team, and she's willing to do the work.

Biden couldn't do the work; he was too old and too frail - she's willing to do the work and get out there. But if she doesn't take interviews and she doesn't amp up her interaction with the media it will cost her because the media will get frustrated with that, they'll start complaining about it, they'll still cut to Trump more to punish her, and that'll be a problem for her. But what I would say to you, whatever we're talking about right now will be fortified by 17 September. A week after that debate more concrete things will have been set in the electron’s foundation. Then you and I will be able to look at the data and say, ‘Okay she's going to win and here's why’ or ‘she's miss executed and he's going to win this thing’.

Saxo: John Stewart's daily show, they made quite a lot of fun of the convention. It was all about vibe…

Anthony Scaramucci: I believe based on talking to people inside her campaign that their pushback to you would be, this woman entered the race 45 days ago. We had to get her ready for the national stage. Yes, she was the Vice President, but you know how the Vice President is treated in this country, they get relatively neglected.

She's now thrust into the spotlight. Her first thing she's got to execute on is don't gaff and have another entrant come into the race and spoil it for her and have some kind of mini primary, so no press and then Americans don't care because they're in summer, the media cares. She then has to execute a base laden DNC.

She does that, but she provides no specifics because frankly, she's only at that point. She's days into her campaign. She's not ready. She didn't even have Gene Stirling on the team until this week. He's the senior economic advisor now, she’s broadened the map for Democrats, Trump has got to go to more places and spend more money in places that he thought he wasn't going to have to spend money as a result of her being in the race. But he's also behind her on the fundraising, she's raised $540 million since the convention. And so, she's got a tremendous amount of money. She's got twice the number of field offices and personnel in Pennsylvania than he has.

People say she should have the narrative together already, but it just does not work like that. It would be like you're the contractor on my house, and I say, ‘let's go, I got to get the frame up’, and you're like, ‘we didn't pour the cement for the foundation, how are we going to get the frame up?’, so you can't get the cart before the horse with this thing. 

Let's evaluate after the debate. If you tell me there's no narrative and she's not going to visit with the press after the debate, or form an independent narrative, or take hard questions from the press, or do some impromptu press conferences, she's going to lose, you'll have to reevaluate it.

But if you tell me she's been disciplined thus far, then the next phase of this thing is to be disciplined with specifics and to show that she can command the facts impromptu - if she does that successfully, she will broaden her viability, she will beat him.

He has very high negatives and he's never been able to get above 47 and a half percent, and he's under criminal indictment and there's the spectre of a sentencing coming. Now, I don't expect him to go to jail, but you could see a wrist slapping. You could see some kind of punitive thing that hurts him. Trump will say that these things help him, and maybe it does galvanize some of his base, but in general it doesn't help him with the independents. Having a conviction record and having a potential penalty in terms of time being served, even if it's home confinement or an ankle bracelet or that sort of thing, it's not ideal for trump.

Saxo: But on the Gen-Z, this is the first generation where the financial prospects are less than their parents. Do you think they look at that as the Democrats' fault, Republicans' or just because of the system?

Anthony Scaramucci: The Trump voter is similar to the Bernie Sanders voter. The Trump voter is a populist, the Trump voter is saying 'the establishment hasn't worked for me, the establishment is not aggregating for me - burn the goddamn thing down'. And so those people that feel that way in the lower and middle income were voting very hard for Donald Trump in 2016, less so in 2020. But the real question is now, where are those voters going to go?

If Harris can get out there and say, ‘hey, we had a great legislative agenda, we passed onshoring of the manufacturing act, we put 250 billion dollars into that, we passed a CHIPS act, we're now making microprocessor chips in the United States, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act where we've got bridges, roads and tunnels being rebuilt in the United States that's going to lower the cost of goods of services in the country, and by the way, those three legislative items have added to real wages and added to real income growth for lower and middle Americans, and Mr. Trump did nothing for you - yes, he expressed your anger and he acted as a representative of your anger but it didn't pass any legislation to help you’ - you see what I'm saying?

Joe Biden was too frail to make that argument. But she's not made that argument yet, the way I just made the argument - if she doesn't do that, she's at risk. But I'm being told she is set up and is getting ready to do all that. But remember you're 45 days in and I think she's been disciplined, and she's been contrary to conventional wisdom, but I think it has worked for.

Saxo: We were talking about the economy which is obviously at the heart of the previous question, but everyone's concerned about the overall level of the debt in the US, yet no politician on either side can promise austerity.

Anthony Scaramucci: But it's also not going to happen because they have the flexibility of having the US dollar be the reserve currency, and we've got a lot of dollar denominated assets floating out there. They're both making a mistake not coming up with a coordinated, long-term, decade-plus deficit reduction plan. They should both be saying ‘hey, let's get this off the table in a bi-partisan way, we're going to work for 15 years to lower the percentage of the GDP that's going into the debt and we're going to figure out a way to reverse course on what we've done over the last 20 years’ - neither side wants to do that.

The American public is not taking that potential crisis seriously. And the politicians, frankly, are saying ‘if I've got to print another two trillion dollars this year, I'll do it’. It does hurt living standards. These deficits are unfunded tax liability. You're either going to pay them back by raising taxes or you're going to inflate them, you're going to monetize them by creating so much money that you're paying them back with dollars that are worth less than the ones that you borrowed.

Saxo: Is it a poisoned chalice then for either of them, because inflation is going to be hard to avoid?

Anthony Scaramucci: Yes, but remember, when we think linearly, you're talking to investors, and you should remind these investors when we think linearly, we get things wrong. We thought in 1985 we were running out of oil. It was something called Peak Oil Theory. I was told by a professor that we would run out of oil by 2010.

We didn't run out of oil. We invented ideas and ways to get more oil out of the system; fracking, better offshore rigging, GPS technology, thermal imaging - we figured out where the oil was, and we tapped into more oil.

So when you sit there and you say, it's going to go a certain way, it may or may not go that way because you could have tremendous productivity growth in the United States as a result of robotic technology and AI, and all the sudden the economy's growing faster than you expected, the receipts are coming in from the tax revenue perspective that are helping you pay down things or at least reduce the percentage of our budget that's going to interest expenses.

Saxo: One of the things that Kamala Harris has announced is the capital tax on unrealised gains. Does that risk any slice of the voters?

Anthony Scaramucci: Listen, that's never going to happen. I think it's a mistake for her to bring that up. I think she's trying to feed red meat to the left wing of her base, but that's never going happen. They don't have enough Democratic votes to pass that. No Republican I know would vote for that. There's many Democrats that would never vote for that.

Saxo: If she was to bring it in, would it have an impact on trading behaviour in the global market. Would it deter people from investing?

Anthony Scaramucci: It would destroy the capital market in the United States. That's the reason why, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, who are all economists who I have spoken to and have their research, haven’t written about that. They know the consequences of it would be absolutely cataclysmic and they know, it's just chin music for her base. Anything's possible, and I've been humbled by life, but I have that at less than a five percent probability that even gets proposed.

Saxo: You've been talking to JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch etc - big business has so much power in the States, doesn't it? You clearly operate in that area, what's the inside scoop on what business thinks of Kamala?

Anthony Scaramucci: I think the big CEOs are with her. What I mean by that is the Fortune 500. Jeff Sonnenfeld - the dean of the Yale School of Management - says that there are no Fortune 500 company CEOs supporting Donald Trump.

Musk is supporting Donald Trump. Elon Musk is of the opinion that under Donald Trump it will be more decentralized and less controlled. That's good for him in his businesses, so he's for Trump. I think it’s incorrect and this is a 2016 analysis.

I was once for Trump, I got to see up close and personal what he's like. My conclusion was that he can't be President again. He may be who the hell knows? But I'm telling you, there's a reason why 40 of us have gotten together and said, ‘’Hey, this guy shouldn't be president.’’

If I worked at a pharmaceutical company, and I had 40 people that were distinguished, experienced people in their 50s and 60s that worked at that company who weren't monetarily incentivized, and were telling you the truth and said, ‘’Hey, this pill, I watched it getting made. If you take the pill or you give it to one of your kids, it's going to kill them and you,’’ would you take the pill?

But yet in American politics, you have 40 people saying that to people and you have 73 million people that still support Donald Trump.

Saxo: There’s a feeling Trump will go after people who have gone after him or stand in his way. His initial stance on not going after Kamala has not held out, how low will he go?

Anthony Scaramucci: He's going to viciously try to tear at her and attack her. He's hoping that she will break down somehow and will not be able to withstand the attacks that he's bringing, that's his goal and she will make a mistake If she goes Hillary Clinton on him.

So, what did Hillary Clinton do?  Clinton said: ‘’I'm going to read the policy book from A to Z. I'm going to show it at the debate and I'm going to demonstrate to people my depth of knowledge of policy’’.

The American people don't want that. They want a verbal sparring match, and they want you to outwit him. I would love to tell you that this is a hiring contest in the United States, but it’s not. It's a popularity contest. Who's going to keep me interested? Who looks like a safe pair of hands? If she can roll with Trump in a live debate, that means she can be okay with Vladimir Putin. It's simplistic, but that's how the American people think.

Saxo: Trump seemed a bit restrained in his attacks against Biden in the previous debate - though he didn’t have to do much with Biden struggling.

Anthony Scaramucci: Trump is not stupid. Anyone who thinks that he is stupid, they're missing the whole experience that's going on with Trump when he saw Biden imploding. The right move on the board was not to pile on Biden, but to point out that he was imploding and then get away from the implosion.

He then went on a 10-day sabbatical after that debate because he didn't want to pile on, He wanted Biden to stay in the race. So, he went away for 10 days and didn't criticize Biden at all. Because if Biden comes out of the race, he may have to deal with somebody younger than him. That would be more dangerous for Trump.

Saxo: He won't be timid on Monday though, would he?

Anthony Scaramucci: No, he's going to come out guns-a-blazing!

He's going to come out fierce, He will tell her she’s incompetent and a dumb woman - which is a code word for ‘you’re black’. Just racist, dog whistles. She has to handle herself well because she has to parry him. She's got to debate him and tell people he is wrong for the country, and she is right for the country.

It's going to be hard for her to win with an ‘’I'm not Donald Trump. That's my campaign message. So, vote for me!’’ I don't think that works. If there's a narrative that's coming out of her campaign of what she stands for vs what he stands for, then she has the best shot to win.

If she doesn't provide that she creates a vacuum of advocacy for her own policies. Then I think she'll lose because people won’t know what they are getting from her.

The other thing that happens when a politician does that is that the other side comes in with the worst policy that they could think of, and they superimpose it on their competitor.

She's hammering totalitarianism and project 2025. He'll be hammering unrealized gains, taxes, and so forth.

Saxo: So, the fear is that she might play defence? Because Trump is only going to play offense, isn’t he?

Anthony Scaramucci: The fear is she plays defence, or she goes into Hillary Clinton policy wonkiness, which is incredibly boring and incredibly trife for the American people and it doesn't serve her well.

Saxo: What cards can Trump play? What does he have to play?

Anthony Scaramucci: Trump has two things going for him. He's got the economy on which he polls better than her, and he's got the border, which he also polls better than her. On both of those things if he blames her for the inflation, she has to respond to that, say It's not her fault and explain that.

He can press her for the feeling in the economy. The stock markets are at an all-time high, but people feel poorer because they have less disposable income. He can pressure her on that.

Saxo: The narrative is starting to grow a bit of momentum around the election that it has been rigged. How close is the US to reaching the tipping point to send it into anarchy If the Republicans don't get the result they want?

Anthony Scaramucci: I have a counter view to all this. The conventional wisdom theory is he's going to try to cause a massive insurrection, that if he loses the election he is going to ask for guns and violence and a takeover. But I have a different theory on this. I don't think that's going to happen because I think he's under criminal conviction. He's been convicted 34 times for a series of different felonies. And I think they have to say to him - 'if you start a violent insurrection, that's a jailable offense'. You're not going to jail for the other stuff that you've perpetrated, but if you start a violent insurrection, you are going to jail.

Saxo: Can he control his base though?

Anthony Scaramucci: I think so. And also, the American government is going to be way more prepared for him. They were caught off guard on 6 January in 2021. They're expecting the type of thing that you are talking about. Remember the doctrine as an investor of reflexivity is that if everyone's expecting it to happen, it reduces the likelihood because of the preparation.

You have candidates in the race. If Vice President Harris loses, is there going to be an insurrection? So, we have one candidate that we think could cause an insurrection, isn't that prima facie disqualifying for the son of a b?

So now as this narrative unfolds over the next two months, are there enough smart American people to make sure that he doesn't go back into the White House? We're going to get a garden variety Democrat, the economy is going to be fine, the stock market's going to be fine. Putin will have to cut a deal because she'll remain convicted on Ukraine, the status quo will exist.

He will wreak havoc on the status quo, he’ll want out of Ukraine, he’ll allow Putin to push into other republics, that’s what he does.

Saxo: So, does he make the election if he knows he's going to lose? He looks as though he's the type of character that would take the ball away if he's upset?

Anthony Scaramucci: If he's down 10 or 12 points, he's going to drop out. He will never let her beat him that badly. I'm telling you; I've gotten that from the internal people that work with him. Plus or minus five he will stay in and try to win. He goes down 10 or 12 points; he'll fake a health issue. He’s the worst presidential candidate for the Republicans, since Herbert Hoover.

Saxo: Is this the end of his career if he doesn't win? Does he retire from politics or trying to influence politics? And if that happens, who is left from the Republican Party to pick up the baton?

Anthony Scaramucci: If he loses, that will create an opportunity for the Republicans to move away from him and to grow a new centre coalition in America. If he wins, he'll use his right-wing organizers and his right-wing base, his project 2025 to try to recreate what goes on in America? And it'll be very dystopian.

Saxo: If it's dystopian, what does that represent for the economy? And what impacts will it have on the US, the value of the dollar, globalization and trade? Does that risk the pillars of the US economy as we know it?

Anthony Scaramucci: The short answer is, yes. He's already talking about Fed dependence on him. He's giving speeches and said the Fed should no longer be independent. Is that a good idea for investors, that we don't have an independent Fed? Look at what Erdogan did to the central Bank of Turkey when he said he was taking it over. It would be terrible for the US.

Saxo: Trump is campaigning on the back of he'd be better for the economy, but he could be worse.

Anthony Scaramucci: Well, he’s saying he wants to take over the Fed, pump up tariffs to 20% with the Chinese, and cut income taxes. And it's going to create a 4.6 additional trillion-dollar balance in debt. How's that good for the economy?

Harris needs to do exactly that - ‘So, this is what he wants to do, how is that good for the economy?’. And smart people know that it isn't.

Saxo: The Fed Bank is meeting just after the debate, how do you see them changing the rates?

Anthony Scaramucci: I think they're only going to cut .25 right now. I think you will get three .25 rate cuts by the end of the year unless anything catastrophic happens.

People think they are behind the curve and should cut more, that it should be 125 basis points by the end of the year just to get back to even, but they will only cut by .75

I think the dollar will strike once they cut rates because once you cut rates, remember, it's a match selling race. So, the other banks will start cutting rates. Which will strengthen the dollar because it's a relative game.

Saxo: Is it still good to keep holding cash as investors, or are there other commodities attractive all the time the US economy is potentially volatile?

Anthony Scaramucci: I own a lot of cash and a lot of bitcoins. I still have a stable of technology stocks I long-term believe in. They're down a little right now but I think the markets are up 16-17 percent so far this year, which was a very good run. If you get three rate cuts, I think it'll bully the market. It'll provide a floor evaluation for the market.

Saxo: In terms of the other assets, commodities such as gold or other metals, which would you say are the ones to go to and what are you staying clear of?

Anthony Scaramucci: We have in our portfolio copper, and we have gold. You need copper for the electrical properties associated with it, the conductivity, you need it for the plumbing in the home improvement and housing. I think gold has outperformed the S&P 500 over the last two years.

Saxo: Is the S&P too reliant on the Magnificent Seven?

Anthony Scaramucci: No question. What should be done and what could be done? They could be challenged from an anti-trust perspective. And they can be broken into a multitude of different companies, and that would, frankly, unleash more innovation. That's something that could be done. Will that be done? Just too strong of a lobbying effort to prevent it but there are people in Washington who think that they should be broken up.

The great irony of all this, when they broke up the AT&T Bell System in 1984, it unleashed all of the great technology that led to the Internet, to the explosion of Web One, social media and all the other things. So, we had to do that. I think it's a mistake not to allow for this in innovation, but those companies eventually will have to get broken up.

It’s not going to happen anytime soon I'm just talking about what's right or wrong,