90. Why Elon Musk Was Fired By Trump

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Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was queer.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Hello, and welcome to the Rest is Politics U.S.

with me, Anthony Scaramucci.

Today, Caddy Kay is off, and for those of you that think I've had a falling out with Caddy K,

in my mind, I haven't, at least.

No, I'm just kidding.

Okay, we we love each other.

She's phenomenal.

She just happens to be on vacation.

She's sipping cocktails somewhere in the south of France.

She outs me, so I like outing her.

But I'm joined by the brilliant host of MSNBC's The 11th Hour.

I wish I was in the south of France.

You know, Stephanie, I don't even want to tell people how long we know each other because I'm lying about my age, and I hope at this point you're lying about your age.

But 100 years.

This is a multiple-decade relationship, you and I.

And listen, no Caddy here today.

We miss Caddy, but we've got Stephanie.

Welcome to the show.

I'm just going to tell you what we're going to talk about, if you don't mind.

Okay, the first thing we're going to talk about is the Trump trade war.

We've got to talk about Elon Musk at the top of the hour because I think that's important given the black eye and the black guy he's trying to give Mike Johnson right now through his Twitter account.

Literally, figuratively, the whole day.

Yeah, exactly.

And then we're going to go into China and the U.S.

and so forth.

But I want to get your thoughts on this.

And

you have been so good at the reporting that Donald Trump has taken to Truth Social

to lambaste you a little bit.

Don't you love that?

Because I love that.

You know, when he calls me a total loser and things like that, I'm very happy.

And you must be very happy when he's lighting you up, right?

I wouldn't say that I'm very happy.

I think I'm honored that the work that I do, the reporting that I'm doing, the people that I cover gets the president's attention.

Because, you know, when the president does make his comments about me, the last time he did, it was two days before his exact move on kind of folding a bit with China.

The president doesn't like that the people I cover are the people whose approval he cares the most about.

Some of the biggest people in corporate America, some of the biggest people in the finance community.

And I'm on TV reporting what they are telling me, how they are feeling.

And if the president doesn't like it, he doesn't like it.

And I feel privileged that the president of the United States, whomever is in the Oval Office, is watching my stuff.

And listen, when he tells me that I don't look good on TV, the truth is on those days, I don't look so hot.

And the guy does know quite a bit about hair and makeup.

Not that much, though, to be honest.

I mean, the orange stuff is really, I mean, listen, if I was him, I would be changing the color scheme at this point.

You know, I mean, the color scheme's off.

And by the way, it's very blot.

It's almost like Steve Bannon at this point is doing his makeup.

Like if Steve Bannon had like a makeup product line, it would be like blotch by Steve Bannon.

Listen, he does surround himself with absolutely beautiful women, though.

He does.

Okay, well, this could be other issues related to that, but I want to kick the gut on the bird here for a second and ask you, did Leon Musk get fired?

Ooh.

I think he was about to get fired by his biggest investors.

Right?

So, so we saw Tesla take a nosedive, right?

Elon Musk left D.C.

last week and it was his third failed rocket launch within just a few days of him being back in Austin Texas Elon Musk made an enormous investment in Donald Trump's campaign he then basically moved in with Trump and it was you Anthony who said to me all of these people going down to Washington are going to get what did you call it call it Potomac fever Potomac fever Potomac fever that's why I know they think they know how you know we're going to take business and we're going to implement that in government and Elon Musk had all these big ideas and they simply didn't work So, Elon Musk said he was going to cut $2 trillion.

Then he said he was going to cut $1 trillion.

Then it was down to $150 billion that we haven't even seen most of the receipts for.

And it failed.

And while that failed, what he did do was cut tens of thousands of jobs.

And people around the country aren't happy about it.

So couple that with what Tesla stock is doing, with what his board, I'm sure, is saying to him, with what, according to my reporting, some of his largest investors said to him.

And he had to go home.

And that's where he is right now.

What's interesting is what he's saying now attacking uh the what trump calls the big beautiful bill we shouldn't be surprised elon musk always wanted to have big cuts if elon musk would have gotten his way there would have been big cuts to social security medicare medicaid it was musk months ago who i believe it was on a joe rogan podcast said social security is a ponzi scheme Now, if you and I wanted to say the social security system is broken, it is running out of money, it needs to be revisited.

People have time for that.

But as soon as he said it was a Ponzi scheme, you saw all these Republican lawmakers not condemn him, but like trying to round the edges, trying to solve it.

If Elon Musk got his way in Washington, there would have been cuts up to the tune of $2 trillion.

So whether he was fired by Trump, whether he was fired by his investors, it didn't work anymore.

What did work for him was going to Washington and ensuring that every investigation, every pending regulation, every inspector general that was looking into any of his businesses or their wrongdoing, all of that poof seems to have disappeared.

And as much pain as he's endured over the last hundred days, I would say it gave him a huge win that he does still have a line into Washington.

And all of those things that were giving him serious headaches have managed to disappear.

Well, I think he got fired.

And I also think they're going to say you could work as an unpaid governmental advisor for 130 days and your time is up.

But of course, the president could have extended that if he wanted to.

It's not a big deal that he got fired, but I think he got fired.

I think his reason.

You could be right.

You have more expertise in getting fired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I am, you know, if you dig into the cereal box, at the bottom of the cereal box, there's a Scaramocci decoder ring.

on Trump firing.

Okay, so you just have to twist the knob like two times, and there it is.

Musk likely got fired.

Okay,

I just think he, I think he got fired.

And by the way, not that that's a big of a deal, but I think he showed that he's pissed off about it.

And he sent out a tweet that sent alarm bells through the Republican Party.

And by the way, a very honest tweet.

Because the big, beautiful bill is a big, horrific bill.

And you know this, and I know this.

We got to get the trajectory right in terms of what we're spending and what the growth is of the economy if we're ever going to cure our deficits ills.

So, but I want to introduce our viewers to your experience, if you don't mind.

Started in sales and trading on Wall Street.

You were a Bloomberg reporter.

For how many years were you a Bloomberg reporter, Steph?

I worked in banking for 14 years.

I was at Credit Suisse for six years.

I was at Deutsche Bank for eight years.

I then spent five years at Bloomberg Television.

And I came over to NBC, MSNBC

six years ago, never ever having covered politics.

The reason I'm setting you up up that way because I want you to synthesize, given your life experience,

the lessons about business leaders going into politics and people saying, oh, I'm going to treat politics like a business.

Does that ever work?

No.

Now, I'll say, Do we need to tighten the screws?

Is the spirit of Doge a really good one?

Do the American people feel like the government spends too much money?

Maybe we have too many agencies.

We definitely have too many regulations and we can tighten things up.

Is Washington filled, filled, filled with bureaucrats, some of whom don't necessarily need to be in those roles?

Sure.

But this idea that I'm going to take this business acumen and take it to Washington just doesn't fly, right?

If you take any companies that were in the DAO when the DAO was created, they don't exist today because a business isn't designed for the same reason the government is.

A business is designed to optimize profitability.

The government is designed to ensure that people are physically safe, socially free, and financially secure.

And when I say financially secure, don't lose your mind and say, What do you mean, government handouts?

No, I mean have a safe, regulated banking system to ensure when people put their money in the bank, it will be there when they try to take it out.

That is a totally different set of goals than what a business is designed to do.

Now, should we put

some more razor-sharp edges to the way we approach government?

Yeah, we have people that are elected officials that are too old.

And you want to call me ageist?

Go for it, right?

How many companies do not allow people to sit on their corporate boards over a certain age?

Many, many, many.

There's requirements around it.

It doesn't make me.

ageist and and sometimes i think government is so concerned with being careful and inclusive and not possibly offending anyone there are rules they should put in place and i'll just make this one point.

When I look at really successful people in business and government, a lot of the really successful people in business do their worst things in the first half of their career as they're scratching and clawing and backstabbing their way up.

But in the second half of their career, when they've got their life paid for, it's when they do their best work.

I think government is the opposite.

You've got people that get into government, lawmakers, elected officials with the best of intentions, and then they're on the back nine and they don't have loads and loads of money saved.

What they they have is power and what they desperately cannot live without is that power.

So they do every possible thing to stay in office when it's not the right thing for them.

It's not the right thing for their team and it's not the right thing for the American people.

Right.

I mean, it's

incredibly well said.

I guess with Musk, before we go to another topic, is he going to go back to the Democrats?

Like, what happens to Musk?

Listen, you can't write off Musk.

He's been down and out many times.

He's rebuilt himself.

He's the richest secular person in the world, meaning he's not Vladimir Putin or the Saudi Royal family, where he's taking the money from the country.

He is a business person here in the United States, built two or three,

I guess six, if you really think about it, but two or three major successful businesses.

Extraordinarily successful.

Right.

So what happens to him?

Be his brand manager.

I want you to play crisis manager.

Hello.

Hello, Elon.

Are you there?

This is Stephanie Rule, your new crisis manager.

And here's your advice.

Go ahead.

My goodness, there's none to be had.

What is Elon Musk's next move?

I feel like he is going to go back to this lane of saying that he's fiercely independent

and he's going to go after things that he cares about.

But who knows?

He's obviously been burned by the Washington experience.

And I would say the unfortunate thing, Anthony, is there's a huge appetite in this country for Doge.

There was a lot of people giving him a lot of leeway of like, man, look what that guy created in the private sector.

Let's see what he can do in government.

And Anthony, imagine if you actually took the spirit of Doge and made it a multi-year project and brought in actual experts.

If you went to people who were on the back nine of their career, who were experts in all different fields and said, we've created a task force.

We would like you to come in and look at this agency, look at this department, see who we can make it smarter and better.

People would be honored and thrilled to take on those roles.

But instead, Elon Musk went full anarchist style and said, like, I'm just going to bring in this team of heroes who knew nothing about the areas that they were looking at.

Can you imagine?

If we actually took the greatest technology companies in this country, who should be so grateful that they were able to be founded and went public and grew here in the United States.

What if those companies partnered with the government and said, we're going to update your computer systems?

We are going to create such a new, better system.

Think about the IRS that operates on Cobalt, a system that is so old when it breaks down, they can't even find people to come in and fix them.

So I look at what Elon Musk did as a huge missed opportunity because scores of Americans, and I don't mean like the young bros or the tech super fans who worshiped him, scores of Americans were like, yeah, government doesn't work for me.

It's slow and big and fat, and I don't know where my tax dollars go.

Let's see what he does.

So

I don't know what he's going to do next, but I think there was a huge opportunity that was missed.

And I don't want that to turn us off from the idea of having some sort of collaboration.

He just wasn't the right person to do it.

What do you think?

If I were a Democrat, not a Democrat, but if I were a Democrat, I'd be trying to woo him back.

I would tell him, look, your customers are primarily Democrats.

Let's give a cooling off period.

Come back into the party and help us.

And let's acknowledge some of the things that you're right about.

The Democrats are in sore need of a Clinton-like experience.

Again, this is my opinion: a radical centrist that can come in, help reform the government,

lay off of the hard left stuff that the country really doesn't like, go for the

heartland, which was your base, which was Lyndon Johnson's base and Jack Kennedy's base, et cetera, and bring Elon Musk back into the fold as a prodigal son.

I think it would be an amazing story for Elon and an amazing story for them.

They're not going to do it.

Anthony, they could get more than the heartland, right?

They could get higher educated America.

There are a lot of business people that you and I both know who begrudgingly voted for Donald Trump or voted for him and didn't say that they voted for him.

And now they are sitting there silent because they're mortified by what he did.

Many, many people who you and I talked to, who exist in our lives, who during the campaign thought that so many of the warnings that you were giving about the threat to democracy, about Donald Trump actually doing what he was going to do, what he said he was going to do, people said, you're crazy, you know, you're being dramatic, blah, blah, blah.

Trump's going to be aware of that.

Trump's arrangement syndrome.

All of it.

And now here he is doing it.

All of those people are dead silent right now.

If a candidate came along, and I am not a politics expert or a political prognosticator, but if a candidate came along right now and could not just defend the old status quo and actually say America was ready for reform.

The answer isn't let's blow the system up.

The answer is let's make it smarter and better.

I think you would have an overwhelming number of Americans who are open to that idea.

Elon Musk, could he get on board with that?

Maybe.

Or maybe there is too much wreckage between Musk and the Democratic Party to come back together.

Well, the one thing I will say, and I know you know this because we talk about this privately, they do call you and say, geez, these guys that were working for Trump five, seven, eight years ago and warned us about Trump, they were right.

They do call me.

And again, I'm not sitting here patting myself on the back.

I'm just saying I'm trying to tell people, unlike on Wall Street, where you and I can't say past performance is indicative of future results, we can can in politics.

We can say, okay, this is what the guy's going to do.

Mnuchin blocked him.

Gary Cohn, John Kelly blocked him.

None of those guys are around now.

And so he's going to go do these things with willing sycophants.

And here we are.

You should have known that, Anthony.

During the transition,

Howard Luttnick went on television and said, the number one requirement we are looking for in the new administration is loyalty to President Trump.

And if anyone followed the first administration, remember, my generals, how we wanted Jim Comey to behave, his big frustration is that the judges, the Defense Department, they all weren't answering to him.

And instead, you had people that were answering to the American people and the Constitution.

And he didn't like that.

So when he got a second turn at bat, i.e.

his second administration, he didn't want that.

He wanted something else.

But the people who you and I are talking about, that we talk to every day, didn't believe that's what he was going to do.

And they were wrong.

Yeah, well, 100%.

So you've mentioned Lutnick.

So let's go to Luttnick for a second.

And I like doing role play on the rest of politics U.S.

And so this is maybe why Caddy goes on vacation so much, but let me just role play with you for a second.

I want to ask you the following question.

I want you to role play.

I want you to be the commerce secretary for a minute.

And you just signed this extraordinary deal with the UK.

And you've got certain tariffs on steel and aluminum products from the UK that are lower.

And you've got certain automobiles that can come in, you know, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, et cetera.

Now, all of a sudden, a few weeks later, Trump says, nope, ba-boom, 25% tariffs on all your steel.

So be the Commerce Secretary, be Mr.

Luttnick.

And what is the conversation that you're having with your UK counterpart?

We need to remind our audience of Howard Luttnick, who he is and what his skill set is.

For everyone who says, listen, he was the CEO of his company, Canner Fitzgerald, it's in the investment banking world, he's a broker's broker, okay?

He is the world's most successful broker's broker.

I'll give him that.

But a broker's broker is a middleman.

And that middleman lies to the person on this end of the phone and lies to the person on that end of the phone.

And they take a commission in the middle.

They are not a principal ever taking real risk.

So God only knows what he is saying to his UK counterpart right now.

And

I would even take issue with the big, beautiful agreement that they signed with the UK.

No, they didn't.

Trump's back was against a wall.

Things were looking horrible with every other country.

Not a trade deal was happening.

All of these countries that were normally our allies are suddenly working on partnerships with China.

And on a Wednesday night, when the PM over in the UK was sitting home, eating chips, watching soccer, Trump calls him on the phone and says, hey, hey, hey, let's get a deal together tomorrow.

So it wasn't even even this big, extraordinary deal.

But my goodness, what is Howard Luttnick saying to him right now?

Who knows?

Or he's saying, I'll get you on the back end.

Or listen, we're screwing you on aluminum and steel, but let me show you this crypto deal.

It smoke and mirrors what's happening.

And anyone telling us this is all part of the negotiation and this is all the art of the deal, if this was part of the negotiation, we're a month out from the 90-day deadline.

Where?

Show me any of your work.

And the fact that Donald Trump keeps folding, this is what's amazing.

Yesterday, Deutsche Bank, my alma mater, said basically they think Trump is going to continue to relent.

He's not going to go full bore on these tariffs because he does keep chickening out.

I'm grateful he's chickening out.

Most businesses and investors across America are grateful he's chickening out.

But the bond market, the stock market, CEOs across America are telling him this isn't working.

And we have yet to see him come up with any sort of great trade agreement that's great for the American people or great for American business.

One more role play for you, Stephanie Ruhl, if you don't mind.

I now want you to be the president for a second, and I want you to tell the American people

how protectionism equals prosperity.

There's no economic data that suggests that.

There's hundreds of years of data that suggests that's recessionary and contractionary.

But go, what's the message and what are his supporters buying?

He is saying to people in western Pennsylvania right now, look at me.

For all these years, China has been shipping their underpriced, cheap, bull,

you know what, aluminum and steel and stealing from us.

You have worked in aluminum and steel for decades.

You did it.

Your father did it.

Your grandfather did it.

And your great American businesses in western Pennsylvania couldn't thrive because of this cheap aluminum and steel that came from China.

I'm putting a stop to that.

And there could be people, Anthony, who hear that and care about it.

Because the truth is, in the case of aluminum and steel, it has been unfair for aluminum and steel producers in the United States.

However, we have all sorts of other industries here, construction industries, car industries that are now reliant on that cheap aluminum and steel.

And so they want it.

The biggest problem the president has is that that he's fantastic at branding and marketing and simplifying things to get to hit right where we hurt, to right where people feel aggrieved or angry.

The problem that the president faces is there are no simple solutions for these colossal problems.

Okay.

All right.

What do you think?

Well, yes, I think that's what he's saying.

I think he's saying that you've been ripped off.

He's tapped into the emotionalism of

populism.

And that happened in the UK back in May, June of 2016, nine years later.

It didn't work.

If you look at the economic data, they're poor.

They have less disposable income.

I think it's hurt morale.

I think it's hurt the city as a capital center, London as a financial capital center.

And I think he's trying to Brexit the United States.

And I think it's a populist ideal, but he doesn't have any opposition that's explaining this carefully enough or with enough impact.

He doesn't have any opposition carefully explaining it.

And we cannot understate the power of the right-wing media sphere.

We can't underscore that you've got news deserts in this country that are only getting right-wing media.

And the impact of the tariffs haven't hit yet.

When they do, people will feel it.

And so people believe, listen, he's a great communicator.

He's great at branding.

Democrats are not nearly as good as the president is in some part

because nuance is hard to explain, right?

You can't get a complicated truth on a bumper sticker or a push notification.

And the complicated truth is that the country has been hollowed out.

We have lost thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Parts of this country are hurting and forgotten.

It's how Trump as a political candidate was born.

However, here we are, talk to any retailer, talk to any clothing manufacturer right now.

They are panic stricken, right?

You can't suddenly move clothing production.

Clothing manufacturers already moved from China a decade ago because the government told them to, and they moved to places like Vietnam.

They moved to places like India.

Now this idea, like when Howard Luttnick goes on TV and says, we're going to be screwing iPhones in the United States, that's absolutely absurd.

So while while the president's saying, we're going to make all this stuff here, where, how, when, why?

And then he goes on TV this week and says, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't want to make shirts and shoes and sneakers here.

I want to make high-tech stuff.

I don't know.

Do you mean like chips?

What we saw the last administration start to do with the Chips Act?

And while the president says, no, we're not going to make shirts and shoes here.

He hasn't actually created exclusions, talked to any clothing manufacturer here who watched him say that on TV and said, great, maybe we're going to get an exemption.

They'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.

And 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 Lutnick, 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 Xi, he's going to solve things.

I actually think that is Scott Besson cleverly trying to pass the buck and take the blame off of himself and saying, I can't do anything with this, but you, Supreme Master Trump, you're going to get it done.

So when the Trump has this call with Xi and it doesn't get done, no one can say, what was Scott Besson doing?

He's going to say, well, I gave it to the grandmaster president for him to do.

Okay, well said.

And you asked me to channel some Howard Luttnick.

You know him very well.

We've got on Wall Street, we have all kinds of

special people.

Yeah, 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.

And 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 embarrassing yourself and your family.

Take a 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?

All All 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 barbed wired security compound in some big Mick mansion 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.

Okay, and I'm going to be dramatic here, Stephanie Ruhl.

It's 2:17 a.m.,

June the 4th, 2025, 2:17 a.m.

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, Mr.

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 stop 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.

There 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.

We 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.

This is the elegant exit that will save us from this tariff war.

Because Trump can say, I wanted to do 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

this taco nickname.

Everybody's laughing at Trump and that, 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.

I was impressed with that.

Listen, when your boyfriend's sexing you at 2.17, 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.

He 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?

We come right back from the break.

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We are back from the break.

It's Restus Politics U.S.

It's Anthony Scaramucci.

I'm joined by Stephanie Ruhl, the host of the 11th Hour on MSNBC.

She's filling in for Caddy K.

Stephanie, you're in Fuego today.

So I got to 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 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?

One 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.

This 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?

Because 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 a 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.

But 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 and 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 you know my name is jon thune i'm the senate majority reader as you were saying this my whole body was going john thun john thun john thun 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.

And this is the reason why when John Kennedy wrote the book Profiles and 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 and Cowardice, it 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 and Baby.

Hey,

the kind of guys who are giving no labels tons of money.

They keep saying, just wait.

John Thune, John Thune is going to step up, step in.

You know, 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.

You're President Xi.

You've got the control of your party.

You consolidated power a few years ago.

Your economy is weaker.

We both know that.

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.

There's an urbanization problem now.

And you're him.

And you want to last.

Like you said, you know, 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 outweight.

They're going to outweight 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.

Who 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 she...

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, she 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 she will have the ability to say to Trump a little bit more, show me your cards.

And 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.

Heg Seth flew to the Asian Pacific Rim, and he's saying that a threat to Taiwan from China is, quote unquote, imminent.

Is that histrionic, or do you think there's an imminent 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.

Anyone 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 Hagseth 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.

Xi 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.

I 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.

And 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.

But he strikes me as a guy that could be a long-term thinker on this issue.

So I don't think the threat is imminent.

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.

We 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 treated like Disney did.

And 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.

The 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 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.

Some 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.

What 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 MA, 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.

The 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 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.

If 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 quiet.

He'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.

So 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 twite.

Make it twite, 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.

Yeah, well, all right, but you're going to, you're going to have some tea because you're a good source.

Okay.

So spill some tea.

Marco Rubio.

Frustrated.

He's frustrated, but lots of people who backed him were.

Remember, 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.

You can't be President of the United States if you're that big of an equivocating asker.

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.

When and if he's going to do it, unclear.

I'm waiting for it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Profiles and cowardice.

I think he's also finished.

Okay, let's go to Scott Bassett, 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 lying.

Last 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.

You 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.

by 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.

And 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 U.S.,

joined by my guest host this week, Stephanie Ruhl.

We'll get Caddie Kay back next week.

For all Caddy Kay fans out there, we 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 RestisPoliticsUS.com to sign up.

I'm going to sit catty K 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 restlesspoliticsus.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.