263. TRIP US: Donald Trump, Silicon Valley and Wall Street: Big Money's Deal with the Devil

Why are Wall Street and Silicon Valley weighing in behind Donald Trump? Is it true that Joe Biden and Bill Ackman almost got into a fist fight? What's going on at the Mexican border? Join Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci as they answer all these questions and more on The Rest Is Politics US. 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restispolitics It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Instagram: @RestPoliticsUS Twitter: @RestPoliticsUS Email: [email protected] Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:04Rory Stewart?

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• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

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• 2:27Anthony Scaramucci?

  Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Anthony Scaramucci.

• 2:32Katty Kay?

  And me, Katty Kay.

• 2:34Anthony Scaramucci?

  How are you, Katty?

• 2:35Katty Kay?

  I'm good because I'm back in DC after my kind of travels around this enormous, great country. And it's very nice to be home. On today's podcast, we're going to be looking at the big spike in Donald Trump's fundraising since that criminal indictment at the end of last week, as well as some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, in finance, who had previously alienated themselves from Donald Trump after January the 6th. They're now jumping in and saying they're going to fund his campaign for a second presidency. In the second half of the program, we're going to take a look at Joe Biden's announcement of an executive order on immigration that would allow for the US-Mexico border to be

• 3:18Katty Kay?

  temporarily shut down to asylum seekers. And we'll get into why the president did that, how it's annoyed members of his own party on the progressive left, and look actually a bit more broadly, something I've wanted to do for a while, about the Republican Party's relationship with immigration and how it used to be the party that was in favor of immigration reform. You had American Business in favor of immigration, and now that's all been switched around in the Trump era. First, though, Anthony, as you always say, let's follow the money and talk about what's happened with Donald Trump's fundraising since that criminal indictment last week when

• 3:58Katty Kay?

  he was found guilty of fiddling his books in order to cover up a hush money payment to the wonderful porn star, Stormy Daniels.

• 4:06Anthony Scaramucci?

  It's just an incredible story. If we just stop and think about the story and the fact that he is immunized the American public from the story, and I want you to imagine 20 years ago, a 2004 campaign where this had erupted on one of the candidates, or 30 years ago. The stuff that Bill Clinton was dealing with. It's just an amazing story that he is moving on. He's raised, he says, $200 million. Now, I don't believe that number, Kathy. I just want to provide some perspective on that. When we were working in 2016 for Donald Trump, he was not raising money. When Mnuchin and I got together to build the protocol to raise

• 4:49Anthony Scaramucci?

  money from the high net worth donors, and I had the Romney list, I had the George W. list, and we were going out to those people, they're saying, no, we don't want to give money to Donald Trump. He's off his kilter and it's bad for our business. And so, to Jared Kushner's credit, and a few other people, they organized this, small donor, send out ads on Facebook, Instagram, etc. And we were picking up tens of millions of dollars at an average clip of about $61. And that's worked for Mr. Trump. He got the big donors in 2020 as the sitting president, but he's not getting the big donors. If you look at

• 5:31Anthony Scaramucci?

  the math, he's still getting the small donors, he's not getting the big donors. He closed several of what he calls his outreach offices in some of the swing states this past week. People are saying, okay, if you raised $200 million, and you know you have to get a get out to vote exercise, why are you closing these? Okay, so there's a lot of misinformation happening in that campaign. And by the way, they do what corporations do is they they poll from the month before, and they poll from this thing, you know, President Biden went to Radio City Music Hall a few months ago, raised 25 million. So Trump had to say,

• 6:12Anthony Scaramucci?

  well, I raised 50 at John Paulson's Oceanfront Mansion in Palm Beach, but he probably didn't. He pulled it from other places and took some of it from the small donor. So I just want to provide context to people to understand. Yes, he raised money. Yes, he probably raised money from new people, but I don't think he's Raising the money he's saying.

• 6:35Katty Kay?

  We won't know the final numbers. In America, of course, campaigns have to file what they raise with the government, with a FEC, and we won't know that until the next quarter. So there's no confirmation of the exact number that he's raised. But it's pretty clear that that criminal indictment did lead to a surge. I mean, even the Biden campaign is admitting this, and they've told me this, that it led to a surge in donations to Donald Trump. And he managed to go out there and say, listen, this is a sham trial, a sham verdict. And that resonated because I just keep going back to this number of how insane

• 7:16Katty Kay?

  it is that he says he raised $53 million in the first 24 hours after the verdict came down. Now, to put that in some kind of perspective for you, the kind of language that I understand, the biggest movie out in America this year so far was Dune 2, which I haven't seen yet. Actually, by the way, I loved Dune 1, so I want to see Dune 2. I haven't seen it yet. That didn't even make $53 million in the first 24 hours. So he is raising more from the Trump show is raising more than the Dune 2 show. You'll be glad to hear this because we like Kendall on this program, that Barbie made $70 million in its first 24 hours. So Ken beats Don, which I think is some kind of retribution. But

• 7:59Katty Kay?

  anyway, so I'm sure he's going to try and raise more. But the point is, that verdict managed to get a lot of money for him. We'll get the final numbers later. What do you think about the fact that all of these billionaires, and I know you're saying he's still getting, he's not getting all of those billionaires, but there have been a slew in the last couple of weeks, Antony, and I'm sure you know half of them. There's been the Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, who said he's gonna have a fundraiser for Donald Trump in San Francisco. Apparently attendees are being asked to contribute as much as $300,000. That's $300,000 just to go and get kind of shrimp cocktail and warm white wine. And then Bill Ackman, the hedge fund manager, who I'm sure, who I know you know,

• 8:42Katty Kay?

  also expected to throw his weight behind him. Nelson Peltz, the billionaire investor, who, after the Capitol riot on January the 6th, said he regretted voting for Donald Trump. He has also said he's had a change of heart. I mean, there, there are a bunch of these quite high-profile names who had been alienating themselves for Trump, from Trump after January the 6th, who have now jumped on board. What, what are they looking for and how important are they to his campaign?

• 9:06Anthony Scaramucci?

  So they are important to the campaign because of the symbolism. He's also speaking at the Business Roundtable this week. As you know, that's an elite group of CEOs and Mr. Trump is going to make his case there. Unfortunately, President Biden is not there because he is in France, the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. But I'll just say a couple of things that I want you to think about, our viewers and listeners to think about. Let's take out a Venn diagram and think like a Wall Streeter for a second, or a billionaire. If I'm for Trump-

• 9:36Katty Kay?

  My problem is I've never managed to do that, and I wish I could, because I would not be sitting here as a journalist.

• 9:41Anthony Scaramucci?

  Okay, there's still time, though, Katty.

• 9:43Katty Kay?

  I know, there's still-

• 9:43Anthony Scaramucci?

  There's still time, okay.

• 9:44Katty Kay?

  Well, as, as you say, we are the same vintage and we're running out. But anyway, there we go.

• 9:48Anthony Scaramucci?

  No, no, not, not me. I'm, I'm, I'm in denial. You gotta live in denial, Katty, okay? We are the same vintage, but it's still a good year. It's still a good year. All right. But anyway, and by the way, thank you for making the Ken doll reference, the second one on the Rest is Politics US Ken doll reference.

• 10:04Katty Kay?

  Now the official mascot of the Rest is Politics, I think.

• 10:07Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah, I, I think so. I need, I need abs like Ken, but no other anatomy like Ken. We'll just leave it like that. Okay, so on the Venn diagram, if I support Donald Trump, he wins, very good for me. If I support Donald Trump, he loses, doesn't matter. Joe Biden is a traditionalist, he's not coming for me. If I support Joe Biden and, and Donald Trump wins, very bad for me. So when these guys are looking at the Venn diagram, Nash game theory analysis, supporting Donald Trump, to them, and, and it's 300,000, which is a tremendous sum of money, but to somebody that's worth millions and millions, billions of dollars, it's not that big of a deal to them. And so they're going to put their money behind Donald Trump, and they're going to put it-

• 10:53Anthony Scaramucci?

  They're superficially with the first derivative analysis. I just want to tell a 30 second story, which I don't believe I've told on this podcast, but I think you'll appreciate this. I host a VIP dinner at my conferences every year. And in 2017, I had then former Vice President Joe Biden as the guest of honor. Sitting right next to him was Bill Ackman. And I had Lara Logan there, who was former 60 Minutes correspondent, et cetera. David Patrice was there. There was a whole host of glitterati, hedge fund managers, et cetera.

• 11:25Katty Kay?

  Just briefly, Anthony, for our audiences who don't know him, Bill Ackman, hedge fund billionaire, who has become sort of notorious in democratic circles in America, having been seen as a kind of liberal himself for being opposed to diversity initiatives in colleges and helping, being behind the push to remove some of the presidents of American colleges who he didn't feel were there on their merits.

• 11:47Anthony Scaramucci?

  Harvard graduate, Harvard Business School graduate, very bright guy. I put him next to the guest of honor, Vice President Biden, now President Biden. Well, the conversation got started and the journalist at the table unfortunately went rogue on me. I wanted it to be pleasant. She started asking stuff about the Iraqi war. Joe Biden looked at her and said, you know, Anthony invited me here. He said, this is a social event for me. And so I'm going to bite my tongue and not answer that question. And Bill Ackman leaned over to Joe Biden. He said, you're 72 years old. You've never bit your tongue before. Why start now? And so Joe Biden is an Irishman. He got red in the face. He looked over to Bill Ackman.

• 12:29Anthony Scaramucci?

  He said, hey, listen, you little punk, I'm going to drag you outside and beat the daylights out of you.

• 12:35Katty Kay?

  This is Scranton Joe.

• 12:36Anthony Scaramucci?

  Okay, and that's literally what he said. Okay, Scranton Joe, okay. And, and, and Steve Cohen, me, Dan Loeb, there was a whole collection of hedge fund guys. We looked at each other. I said, I think Joe Biden's going to beat the hell out of Bill Ackman. Okay, and that literally, I calmed it down. I think we started talking about the weather. But there has been a rub there between Bill Ackman and Joe Biden since that moment. Okay, and by the way, the Biden people will be mad at me for saying this. I didn't leak that to anybody, but they leaked it. Okay, and why did the Biden people leak it? They leaked it because they wanted to show Joe Biden in his full glory of beating up on the punk billionaire hedge fund manager. Bill Ackman has denied it.

• 13:21Anthony Scaramucci?

  He put out a tweet this January, actually, discussing his side of it. But I was sitting right across from them and I could see how the Vice President took it as offensive. There was definitely a fracas at the table. So I want to just explain to our viewers and listeners the inside-baseball tension that's going on with some of these people. And so, I'll just say this, and people will get this. Yes, maybe Trump will be for lower taxes and maybe better for business regulations. That's the perception. But what he's not good for is the system. And he's not good for the predictability of the laws. And as a capitalist, I'll tell you that's what's made America so successful is the

• 14:05Anthony Scaramucci?

  stability of our legal system, the common law, contract laws, that allows capital to flow from the rest of the world into the United States. So, anyway.

• 14:14Katty Kay?

  Yeah, I mean, and look, we spoke about this the other day. His plans to increase tariffs on all imports into the United States by 10%, including imports from China by potentially 100% is going to throw the global economy and the American financial markets into chaos, potentially. So, and is there actually any much room to have more tax cuts in a second Trump administration? It doesn't, tax cuts don't seem to feature very highly in the list of economic proposals that some of the people around Trump are coming up with. Although he has said, I mean, it's interesting, when you look at the people that are donating to him, and I think he is kind of, he's skirting the legality on campaign finance laws here

• 14:56Katty Kay?

  by suggesting that he will implement policies in return for money. And he's certainly done that with the fossil fuel industry, when he had all of those oil executives down to Mar-a-Lago, and he told them that he would implement policies in favor of the oil and gas industry if they donated a billion dollars to his campaign. So, whether these people are doing this because they feel they will get direct policy results from donating to Donald Trump...

• 15:25Katty Kay?

  Or are they doing this just because they hate Joe Biden? Um, that, that's what I think is interesting is what do they think they're going to get out of this specifically? I mean, what, what will they get in return for the money that they're donating? Cause they, these are people, I mean, look, Bill Ackman said that Trump should apologize to all Americans in the wake of January the sixth.

• 15:44Anthony Scaramucci?

  Oh, remember, but remember this, these are all barometric pressure guys. They study the markets and Trump's stock was going down at that moment. So that tweet was celebrated. Trump's stock is up right now because Biden is perceived by these guys, even though the stock market is at an all time high and the economy is in generally good shape as anti-business. So, so they're shifting. And remember they're momentum guys. That's how you make your money. This is a call option. I can put $300,000 down on the Trump call option. He goes in the money as president. I get the windfall of having the relationship with him. If I lose the money on this call option, big deal.

• 16:25Anthony Scaramucci?

  I chalk that up to my P and L and some other trades that I've lost money on. And so that's the approach that they're taking. Um, and I think it's a dangerous approach, frankly, if you don't mind me saying so, because it doesn't peel back what is really going on in the society. Under the surface of what Trump wants, and at some point we'll get into this, is Project 2025. Under the surface of what Trump wants is he wants to deport 15 million people from the United States. And you and I both know that 15 million people that are here, perhaps illegally, are actually benefiting the economy. Believe it or not, they're paying social security taxes.

• 17:03Katty Kay?

  We're going to talk about that in the second half of the program.

• 17:05Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah. And so, yeah, so, so I'm just saying, it's just a nonsensical thing. Uh, but I get it. I've been there. I've done what they have done. Okay. And so I get it. I think it's a mistake, but I understand why they're doing it.

• 17:18Katty Kay?

  Do you think he calls them personally to get the money? Is he calling up Bill Ackman and saying, hey? Bill, my friend.

• 17:25Anthony Scaramucci?

  No, no.

• 17:26Katty Kay?

  Billionaire to billionaire.

• 17:27Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah, so this is the great. So, so let's face it. I think everybody knows this. Trump is only a billionaire in Zimbabwe, where a billion dollars can get you like a cab ride for like a half a mile.

• 17:37Katty Kay?

  With due respect to our listeners in Zimbabwe.

• 17:38Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah, yeah. And I love you guys in Zimbabwe. You probably fixed the money at this point. But I do, I do have a $10 billion bill in my wallet. Because when people ask me if I'm a billionaire, yeah, I am a billionaire. But unfortunately, only in Zimbabwe. But, and that's me and Trump have that in common. We're billionaires in Zimbabwe, perhaps nowhere else. And so he perceives himself as a billionaire. And he's so insecure, he'll never call the other billionaire and ask for money. Now, if the billionaire has given him the money, then he'll call. You know, he'll say something to Bill Ackman like, my Bill. He always says that. Or he says to General Milley, my General, how you doing? Or my Anthony, when I was in good favor with him. And so he'll call you, but the money's got to be in the door. You see what I mean?

• 18:23Anthony Scaramucci?

  A guy like, a guy like Mitt Romney, no problem. You know, he get on the phone. He said, give me the list, Anthony. Who is it? Okay, Katty Kay, she's a billionaire. Great. Hello, Katty, I need some dough for this campaign. How are you today? No problem, Bill Romney. Uh, George W. Bush liked it. He liked it. He'd come up with nicknames for these people. He'd invite them in, let's go get some barbecue. But Trump is trying to pretend he's in their peer group. You see the difference? So, so that's, that's the, the morose insecurity.

• 18:54Katty Kay?

  One question I have about money generally in this campaign. And, and we've talked about this a little bit before, whether the whole social nature of social media advertising means that money that used to have to be raised to buy ads in television markets. And television markets around America are not all equal. If you want to spend ads in television markets in California or Texas or, you know, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, that's an expensive ad market, right? You have to, you buy those ads a long time in advance. The Biden campaign feels a little bit reassured by the fact that it has already paid for ad space in The key swing states in, say, Phoenix, Arizona, they've already bought a whole of ads right through November the sixth.

• 19:39Katty Kay?

  The earlier you buy the ad space, it's like buying tickets to the show, right? The cheaper that, or tickets on an airplane, the cheaper that ad space is. And they say, oh, well, the Trump campaign, they're coming in late with the money and so they're having to pay even higher amounts of money for that ad space. I wonder whether two things are happening this time around. One is that you've got the social media effect. So actually, a kind of thirty second slot on TikTok could do you as much as a traditional ad, which costs you a whole load of money to buy in Phoenix. And is the money going to be as needed therefore? But also, campaign finance spending on advertising generally, part of the goal of it is to increase name recognition, right?

• 20:20Katty Kay?

  Candidates who are not known around the country need to introduce themselves in these TV ads around the country. There is nobody in this country who doesn't know who Donald Trump and Joe Biden is. So if they already have high name recognition, do they actually need as much money in terms of campaign financing? Or rather, will campaign finances be as determinative of the outcome as they might be in a race where the candidates aren't well known?

• 20:45Anthony Scaramucci?

  Having worked on these campaigns for twenty five years, what will happen here is a crowd out. And let me explain what a crowd out is. And if you get divorced in the United States, a cynical person will go out and they will-

• 21:00Katty Kay?

  Full disclosure, both of us have been there and we know that it's kind of expensive.

• 21:04Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah, well, it's very painful. It's very painful. And then I'm never going there again. Let me just make the sign of the cross for people that, you know, pray that that never happens again. But when you get divorced in the United States, you can go out and you can hire fifteen lawyers. And you give them their retainer and now you've blocked your soon to be ex-spouse from using those lawyers. So you always pick the more sinister lawyers that your ex-spouse is going to put you on the tabloids in and you try to knock them out of the game. That's what the Biden people have done to Donald Trump. They've gone to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, and they've crowded him out. So the top ads and the top positioning, they've already purchased it.

• 21:47Anthony Scaramucci?

  Okay, now he can still buy some because they always leave some for the end, the way a restaurant does in terms of reservations at a table and so forth. But they've been crowded out and he has spent three to one, this is Joe Biden, President Biden, three to one to Donald Trump's campaign in the world of social media, which includes Facebook, TikTok, believe it or not, Snapchat. Now, you're asking a different question about name recognition. They are dropping issue ads. So if you like IVF and you like having choice as a woman, they're dropping that ad. They're reminding you that Joe Biden is for that. Donald Trump is proud that he revoked that. If you like a controlled border and less immigrants in the country, Donald Trump is dropping that ad.

• 22:31Anthony Scaramucci?

  You see, so what they're trying to do right now is they're using those ads to force out the vote of the people that are issue voters. They say, oh, my God, you're right. I've got to go vote for my rights as a woman and I'm going to show up at the election. I know the two entities, but they have reinforced for me the issues related to these two political candidates.

• 22:51Katty Kay?

  Which is why the money still matters and why the Trump campaign is so happy that they've managed to raise all that money out of the guilty verdict. I think we end with Ken doll again. $53 million in 24 hours. That is what the Trump campaign is saying that they raised after that guilty verdict. That is just a little short of what the entire UK election cycle will cost in one day. I appreciate that that may not be the actual number, but it's still, just to put it in perspective of how much the UK election campaign that is happening at the moment is going to cost, Donald Trump raised almost that much in 24 hours. And we'll be back right after the break to talk more about immigration and Joe Biden's

• 23:30Katty Kay?

  executive order, which is promises to shut down the southern border of the United States if, after a certain number of migrants are coming across. It is a play to show that he is being tough on immigration. And a couple of final thoughts from both of us on D-Day and the ceremonies that are taking place as we're recording this.

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• 25:27Katty Kay?

  Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Katty Kay.

• 25:30Anthony Scaramucci?

  And I'm Anthony Scaramucci.

• 25:32Katty Kay?

  In this half, Anthony, we want to look at the executive order that Joe Biden signed this week, trying to curb migrant arrivals into the United States from Mexico. Basically, the order will stop migrants who cross unlawfully from receiving Asylum, but only after a daily threshold of two and a half thousand crossings have been recorded. This is being seen here as a very tough executive order on immigration, and Joe Biden's team is certainly trying to paint it as that. And it comes, of course, in response to all of the opinion polls showing that immigration

• 26:11Katty Kay?

  is a big issue for voters in the United States and the surge of migrants that we had crossing the border at the end of last year, which was showing up on all of the kind of Fox News Channel. All of the right wing media were picking it up a lot, even the kind of mainstream media were covering this and all of these migrants being shipped around the country. So immigration has become a big issue in this campaign, and this is kind of Joe Biden's response to that, trying to crack down on it. It's produced something of an uproar from liberals in his own party. He got a lot of pushback from progressives, people like the Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Pramila Jayapal, who said that they were trying to out Republican the Republicans, and that never works.

• 26:52Katty Kay?

  You've got the Texas Congressman Greg Cesar, also a Democratic progressive, saying that it was unfortunate that President Biden is responding to the kind of politics of the Republican Party. So he's getting flak from the left of his party. They've made a kind of cynical calculation, I think, in the White House, that those progressives have nowhere else to go, and they're not that worried about that. In fact, I think they kind of think that helps them. If the left of their party beats up on them over immigration, that will probably only help them in swing states where people say that they're concerned about migrants coming across the border.

• 27:24Anthony Scaramucci?

  Three quick things. Biden did something January 20th of 2021, which was a big mistake. He revoked all the executive orders on the border that Donald Trump had in place. He claimed humanitarianism. He did something brilliant. On January 20th as well, he kept the tariffs in place on China. So he didn't have to deal with the tariffs, right? Didn't have to have the political flack of the tariffs. He just left them in place. All he had to do was leave them in place. He didn't. Then he said, okay, I've got to fix this. Let's try to fix it through the House and Senate. And Trump stopped him. So you have to think of the cynicism related to that. Trump calls his minions, they're all lackeys. And they say, hey, it's good for the country to slow down the flow of people at the border,

• 28:09Anthony Scaramucci?

  but it's bad for my political campaign, so don't sign it. Now, what I don't understand, and perhaps you could provide insight into this. When that happened, which was three and a half months ago, why didn't Joe Biden implement this executive order then? Why did he wait till now?

• 28:27Katty Kay?

  That's what, exactly what his Republican critics are saying at the moment, right? You've got people like Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, saying why, you know, if he was going to do this, he should have done it earlier. I think that's a fairly weak argument because it makes it sound from the Republican side that they basically agree with what he's doing. They just wish that he had done it earlier. It's not actually a criticism of the policy itself. It's just a criticism of the timing. The Biden campaign came in saying that it was going to have a more humane policy on the border, and they didn't want to look like the Trump campaign. And they were listening to the progressives in the party. I think the Biden campaign earlier in this election cycle were more confident about their chances for getting reelected.

• 29:11Katty Kay?

  They really didn't think that they were going to be in this position in the polls. And so they see the polls are not moving. They're not ahead in the polls as quickly as they had said they were going to be. And so they've got to do something on a contentious issue, and this is their response to that contentious issue. My bigger question is why there isn't more of a discussion here in America about the slew of economic... Data and studies that show that immigrants into the United States, illegal and legal immigrants into the United States, boost the American economy. I mean,

• 29:48Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Katty Kay?

  Fifty percent of the labor market's growth came from foreign-born workers between January of 2023 and January of 2024. That accounts for the fact that the US economy is booming. I mean, why is the American economy recovered so much better from COVID than most other economies in the world? It's in large part because of the influx of migrants. So the counterargument to both the White House and the Republican Party is, hold on a second, shouldn't we actually be looking at the benefit that all of these migrants bring into the country, which every economist will tell you, I mean, this is, you know, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, these are not touchy-feely economists. These are the ones coming out with the studies saying that the American economy is doing so well,

• 30:33Katty Kay?

  largely because of the immigrants that have come into the country. And that used to be the Republican Party's position. But now they have run so far from that that it's an argument that's kind of disappeared. And everybody's focused on, you know, let's build the wall, let's build the wall. Even the Biden White House is focused on, let's build the wall and stop migrants coming in. But actually, the American economy wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for all those people coming across the border.

• 30:56Anthony Scaramucci?

  So I totally agree with you on the decisions of change in policy because of the polls. And that's the cynicism of being a politician. But here's the other thing that I would say to you, and I want to get you to react to this. I think Trump is off-market. This anti-immigration strategy, this Project 2025, which basically says they want to end immigration into the country, literally wall off the country, literally and figuratively to the rest of the world.

• 31:25Katty Kay?

  And we'll do a whole podcast on that later on. I think that's really worth us diving into.

• 31:29Anthony Scaramucci?

  Yeah, and we'll get there, but I believe it's off-market. And I'm going to explain quickly why. In 2012, we did a study at the Republican National Committee of why Mitt Romney lost, okay? He lost fairly by a wide margin. And a lot of it was related to this immigration issue. And it turns out that this beautiful, colorful mosaic of a country is getting more beautiful and more colorful. And the recommendation from the RNC was that the party reinvent itself and make itself look more like the mosaic of the of the country, not be a party of elderly white people, but to be a more inclusive party and to embrace these elements of immigration. Of course, Marco Rubio did respond to that. Remember that group of eight, whatever they

• 32:14Anthony Scaramucci?

  called it, to try to come up with an immigration deal. But Trump went out of the box on this. And he reached into the last gasp of the demography of whites who are generally nativist and don't want the immigration. And I think he's off market. And I think this is one of the reasons why he's never gotten the popular vote. He's he's been up for election as president twice, didn't get the popular vote at either time. The only way he can get there is through the tyranny of the minority caddy, and that's through the Electoral College. And so at some point, when Trump breathed his last gasp as a politician, the Republican Party, if they want to survive, they've got to go back to that 2012 plan.

• 32:55Katty Kay?

  There's clearly been a shift in the Republican Party's attitude to immigration. And Trump has partly caused that. Like you say, he's kind of weaponized the issue. And if you look at, you know, Ronald Reagan used to talk about working out America's problems with Mexico. George, as I said earlier, George H. W. Bush, back in 1980, was asked whether children in the country legally should be allowed to go to American public schools. And he immediately said he didn't want to think that six or eight year olds should feel that they were living outside the law. And as recently as 2004, George W. Bush gave incredibly moving stories about the plight of people who were crossing the border, saying that, you know, they'd walked through the heat of day and cold of

• 33:40Katty Kay?

  the night to risk their lives. And that they were only coming to America and shouldn't have to end up in the shadows of American life. That was the Republican president in 2004. And if you see what's happened now, I wonder if it's not just Donald Trump weaponizing the issue and kind of inciting nativism.

• 34:00Katty Kay?

  But immigration has lost the business community as a voice of support. So you used to get these powerful groups like the American Chamber of Commerce, coming out very firmly in favor of immigration into the country, recognizing that America had a labor shortage and that they needed these migrants to mow the lawns and paint the houses and pick the fruit and work in the poultry factories. But as more of those jobs have become mechanized, I wonder whether the American business community in many districts now thinks, actually, you know what? We don't need to speak out in favor of immigration as much. So it's partly nativism and partly the changing economy.

• 34:36Anthony Scaramucci?

  No, no, he moved it.

• 34:37Katty Kay?

  The cause of immigration. But it's not just him that moved it. The economy moved it too, right? I mean, businesses don't need migrant workers, perhaps in the same way that they used to, or don't feel they need migrant workers in the same way that they used to because more of these jobs are done by automation. I don't, I just wonder if it's just nativism or if it's also the reality of...

• 34:53Anthony Scaramucci?

  I think it's a combo. I think, I think you're right that it's a combo. Here's the thing I would say, though. We've got to be careful because when we let immigrants in, particularly legally and qualified, you get Sergey Brin, who goes on to, he comes in as a poor refugee, Jewish refugee from Eastern Europe. He goes on and builds one of the most successful companies in the world, Google. You let Albert Einstein in. I could list all the people that came in that were poor, that rose in the country aspirationally and benefited the country. And so we can't forget that. Lee Kuan Yew, when he was interviewed by Graham Allison, the dean of the Kennedy School of Government, in the final days of his life, he said, well, what are your thoughts on America? And so he kind of says about America,

• 35:37Anthony Scaramucci?

  you, you're drawing from the other eight billion people. America is an idea. It's a beacon. You can go to America and be a British American after five years, an Italian American, a Singaporean American. You can't go to Germany and become an American German. You can't go to Japan. And be American Japanese, but you can come to America and be Japanese American. So I, I, I think we can't lose sight of that as a country, how valuable it is. And then just quick 10 seconds, we used to fund through USAID projects in these poorer countries, 800 miles south of us, down the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Honduras, et cetera.

• 36:19Anthony Scaramucci?

  A couple billion dollars of preventative medicine there keeps people in their home country. We pulled the aid on that about 30 years ago, and now everybody's running for the border. So it's, you know, an ounce of perfection, prevention is worth a pound of cure. We got a $20 billion problem at the border, which could be resolved by a few billion dollars into those countries in terms of developmental aid.

• 36:41Katty Kay?

  Yeah, and that's, that's something actually that the Vice President Kamala Harris has been trying to work on, and she's made quite a lot of efforts going around those countries, trying to stop the source of this problem. I just think it's, it is worth reminding people every year, people who are in this country illegally earn something like $90 billion.

• 36:59Anthony Scaramucci?

  They pay a lot of social security taxes.

• 37:01Katty Kay?

  And they pay, they pay $10 billion in taxes. They contribute, and I think that's, that is, you know, the counter argument to we should stop everyone trying to come in, which you're hearing increasingly. It's surprising the degree to which the business community has kind of ditched immigration as an issue. They just don't seem to support it anymore. Before we go, Antony, I do think it's worth a mention about what's happening. As we're recording this, Joe Biden is speaking in Normandy for the D-Day celebrations. He's going there to speak. He won't, he is not going to show up, obviously. He did not show up in Normandy and talk directly about Donald Trump. This is a very important sacred day in American history, and he did, he did, however, speak

• 37:41Katty Kay?

  very clearly about the cause of democracy and needing to stand up for, as he has already said, needing to stand up for what those soldiers died for in that first day of the D-Day invasions. And democracy clearly very front and center of the Biden campaign, and

• 38:01Katty Kay?

  American politics does not stay within its borders anymore. It has drifted across the Atlantic on the waves, even to the shores of France.

• 38:09Anthony Scaramucci?

  I agree with you. I think it's fascinating. I think I've told you this story that my uncle, who I'm named after, was part of that assault on Omaha Beach. He was lucky to survive that battle, was wounded later, but stayed in the army, didn't come back until after the war was over, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. But I did some digging, because you like digging on me, so I'm doing a little bit of digging on you and your family. And Michelle Paradies, who's just wrote a brand new book, bestselling, called The Light of Battle, has your grandfather-in-law in the book. And I'm going to tell a quick story before we exit here about a very famous British general, Bernard Montgomery.

• 38:49Anthony Scaramucci?

  Montgomery was instrumental in doubling the size of the expedition. And so when Churchill and Roosevelt met, they decided on 80,000 men in terms of the deployment. Of course, they were arguing about whether to do it in the first place. Churchill wanted to come in through the Mediterranean, but the Americans won out. But Eisenhower looked at it and said, I can't do it with 80,000. I've got to double the size. And he invited Bernard Montgomery for a smoke and a beer and a cigar. And he talked to him about this. And he gave him, he empowered him. I want you to think about real leadership. The way you get power in leadership is you give it away.

• 39:29Anthony Scaramucci?

  So he went to General Montgomery, he said, you run it, but I need 160, not 80. And of course, he went to the parliament, he went to Churchill, and he got it done. And that was the game changer. Talk about the butterfly effect. Imagine 80,000 people on the beach in a failed expedition, where we got 160,000 on the beach, and we were there to repulse Nazism and authoritarianism. It's just a great story about your family. I thought I would share it today on the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.

• 40:00Katty Kay?

  Yeah, Monty was my husband's grandfather. And apparently Ike went up to him and gave him a big bear hug, which anyone who knows anything about Monty would wonder at that scene, because he was not the most touchy-feely, let's say, of people that we could imagine. I think the other thing that was remarkable about that in terms of leadership and thinking of today, and particularly looking at what some people In the Republican Party are saying about the idea of retribution after the verdict of against Donald Trump, Ike very clearly said, if this does not work, it is entirely my fault. It is on me. And that kind of leadership, taking responsibility and realizing that

• 40:41Katty Kay?

  the buck stops with you, is something that we don't see very much of in this day and age, full stop, as politicians are desperate to pass the blame on to somebody else. One thing that I would say that always impresses and amazes me about the United States, it happened to me just the other day, I was at the airport in Washington DC, and suddenly everybody around me in the terminal got up and started cheering. And it was because a group of elderly veterans were coming off an aeroplane. That is something you never see in Britain. And there is a real reverence and affection for and honoring of people who have served in the armed forces in this country that is perhaps missing in some European countries. But it always really touches me to see these old people walking off the plane

• 41:26Katty Kay?

  and being cheered by the people in the airport terminal.

• 41:28Anthony Scaramucci?

  It moves me, Katty, but I think it's also worth mentioning that at the return of the veterans from the Vietnam War, because that was not a war that was liked.

• 41:36Katty Kay?

  It was a different story.

• 41:38Anthony Scaramucci?

  I think 9/11 bent the curve again, and the pendulum swung back to reverence. There was reverence after World War II in Korea. There was no reverence after Vietnam. But after 9/11, and the sacrifices there, the attack on the homeland, the countries moved back into that reverence position, which I'm happy about, because I have family members that have served. My dad was in the army. Two of my uncles were in the army. And it's nice to see.

• 42:03Katty Kay?

  Thank you so much for listening to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Katty Kay.

• 42:08Anthony Scaramucci?

  And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. We will see you next Friday on The Rest Is Politics US. Please tune in and thank you for joining us.

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