275. TRIP US: Advantage Trump: Will the Democrats move to replace Joe Biden?

What repercussions will Joe Biden's stumbling performance in the first presidential debate have on the race for the White House? Join Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci for their instant reaction to the Trump-Biden showdown that could have serious consequences in the battle to become the next president of the United States of America. This podcast was originally recorded as a YouTube livestream. You can watch it on catch-up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnBSJyL1FEA 🌏 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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restorspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Botox on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton Syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 2:05Speaker 04

  A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty, crunchy peanuts, sweet, sweet caramel, wrapping you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 2:27Katty Kay?

  Welcome to the Rest Is Politics special live post-debate. I feel like I've just gone to an NFL game, Anthony. We are live on YouTube to talk about the first presidential debate that has just wrapped up. This will broadcast, for those of you listening as a podcast, this will broadcast as our regular The Rest Is Politics US version on Friday morning, UK time. But Anthony and I want to take, we'll take some of your questions. They're great. They're coming in already, but give us a second to digest what we just heard. I was watching with my 24-year-old son, who said it was as excruciating as watching England play Slovakia when England was paying badly. Anthony, you have been of the view that Joe Biden is going to win this election. I'm just wondering what you thought of his

• 3:12Katty Kay?

  debate performance, because I am getting Democrats flooding my phone, saying that was a disaster.

• 3:18Anthony Scaramucci?

  I'm a markets guy. Obviously, if I've got something wrong, I'm man enough to admit that I've got something wrong. And how to also sell a position when it's going against me. The prediction markets here in the US are now 6733, Trump versus Biden, meaning the likelihood that Trump will now win. Trump goes up five, six points likely as a result of this. Can Joe Biden make that up? I don't know. I just want to make three quick points. If the election's held today, Donald Trump is winning this election. If the election's held on November 5th, unless something seismic happens to Donald Trump's health, he will

• 4:00Anthony Scaramucci?

  likely win this election. So I have to eat the words that I said before. Facts change. When facts change, smart people change their facts. I'll just make three quick points. This is not Joe Biden of 2020. Go back and watch those debates. I did that this afternoon. He was coherent. When he was sitting, his legs were crossed. When he was standing, he was listening, taking in the information. He was very confident, and he was very sure of himself. He started fumbling with the numbers early on. He said he created 15,000 jobs when he wanted to save 15 million, and he fumbled through the whole night. Last point, whether you like Donald Trump or you dislike Donald Trump, Donald Trump has done

• 4:41Anthony Scaramucci?

  the work to be president. He's out there working every single day. He's meeting with people. He's signing dollar bills of young kids that are wearing Trump wigs. And as a result of which, he was very prepared to use his rhetoric and soundbites effectively tonight. So whether you like Donald Trump, dislike Donald Trump, like Joe Biden, whatever, you know, I have my personal feelings, happy to share them with people. But the president got pounded, President Biden got pounded tonight. Okay, I got my suit on, Katty, because I'm at a wake right now, and I'm a good Catholic, and good Catholics show up respectfully when they're waking somebody.

• 5:18Katty Kay?

  You and Joe Biden, both good Catholics. Look, I think, um, let's talk about optics, and the way this looked, because a lot of people are not going to watch this debate the whole way through. I know that there was an opinion poll just before the debate, saying that seven in 10 people who intended to vote were going to watch the debate. So the ratings could have been very high. We won't have them, uh, by the time we finish this podcast. But for people who are only going to see the clips, and see this as a visual thing, rather than listening to every policy detail, this looked terrible for Joe Biden. Just the camera shots of Joe Biden standing there with his mouth open while Donald

• 5:59Katty Kay?

  Trump was speaking, he looked old. He looked old and kind of out of it. I was watching the debate with a couple of young people in their twenties, my son and his girlfriend, and they just found it excruciating, the whole thing. They said, they look older than my grand, he looks older than my grandparents. On top of the way he looked was the fact that his voice was hoarse. I don't know if he has a cold or something, but he, it was hard to hear very well what he was saying. And his answers weren't particularly coherent. I mean, I tried to follow Joe Biden's answers. There was actually quite a lot of policy in this debate, but you, you couldn't really make out what he was saying, because the combination of his voice being quite weak, and the way he spoke, he would start an answer,

• 6:43Katty Kay?

  and then segue into something else, and then get lost in the sentence. And I think, before we go much further, Anthony, we have to talk about that moment, early on in the debate, that is going to get replayed, and replayed, and replayed on social media, where Joe Biden was giving an answer on COVID, and then he just lost his train of thought, and didn't exactly freeze Mitch McConnell's style, but

• 7:11Katty Kay?

  He looked really bad. I mean, he just, he just, he's just sort of lost his, I don't know how else to say it. He didn't really stumble. He lost his train of thought. That was what, that was the Joe Biden look with the open mouth.

• 7:21Anthony Scaramucci?

  I don't know who's handling Joe Biden, but a couple of things. If your candidate is hoarse, leak it before the debate. If your candidate has a cold, he has a sore throat, he can't speak properly, you gotta leak that before the debate so you can set expectations. Number two, if you're going to a split screen, whoever agreed to the split screen on the Biden side should probably leave the campaign at this point. But if you're going to a split screen, uh, uh, Mr. President, sir, you gotta be prepared for people staring at you while the other candidate is there. When you have your mouth open like this, this is a very bad look. And I don't want to say anything that's ageist. I don't want to say, I'm just

• 8:01Anthony Scaramucci?

  telling you, the imagery of this is very, very bad. And let's face it, Katty, you and I both spent a lot of time on television. Hair and makeup works on TV. Hair dye works on TV. Donald Trump came, hair dyed, made up, and he was energized. And the president looked 15 years older than Donald Trump tonight. And that matters on television. I'm sorry to say this to the people that like Joe Biden. Obviously, I respect Joe Biden. I respect his service. But I don't understand why the Democrats are stuck here at this moment.

• 8:42Anthony Scaramucci?

  They could put up a Whitmer, they could put up a Shapiro from Pennsylvania. I could name five or six people that could get in here right now. Gina Raimondo, okay, any of those people are incredibly skilled politicians, and they could school Donald Trump. Because by the way, I couldn't keep up with the Trump lies, couldn't keep up with them. He told 30,000-

• 9:03Katty Kay?

  And it wasn't being fact-checked. And you didn't have moderators who were saying, you didn't answer the question. That is not what happened. This is not true.

• 9:10Anthony Scaramucci?

  I wrote down, I wrote down all the lies. I couldn't keep up with the lies. And, and, and by the way, Gina Raimondo would say, okay, well, that's a lie. And by the way, he told 30,450 lies-

• 9:19Katty Kay?

  No, Joe Biden did keep saying, you're lying. Um, no one lies as much-

• 9:23Anthony Scaramucci?

  Then you have to back it up. Then you have to say, this is the fact. You can't just say, oh, you're lying, or you're a whiner. You gotta say, hey, you're lying, you're saying this, but this is the truth.

• 9:33Katty Kay?

  It was almost like he was falling back on, you're lying, you're such a big liar. When he didn't know what else to say, I mean, that it came across as a slight crutch during the course of the debate. We should talk about Donald Trump because there was a lot of expectations about whether we would have the Donald Trump who showed up from the first 2020 debate, who came in kind of hot and crazy. And this format, whether it was this format worked really well for Donald Trump because it cut his microphone. He couldn't interrupt the whole time. He didn't come across as a bully. I had Trump people texting me within minutes of this debate. First of all, after that kind of brain freeze, lost his way moment, saying, right, Joe Biden's lost it, but also saying Donald Trump is

• 10:14Katty Kay?

  calm. He comes across as presidential. And because there's no fact checking in real time, the audience, the audience isn't going to know whether half of what he's saying is true or false. And actually, by the way, there were things that Joe Biden should have been called up on too. But the audience isn't going to know that. All they heard was that Donald Trump spoke in with a strong voice, which made a huge difference. He spoke in coherent sentences. As my son said at one point, look, we're all talking to each other in the room when Joe Biden is talking because we can't follow what he's saying. And he sounds quiet and distant. But when Donald Trump is talking, we all shut up and listen.

• 10:49Anthony Scaramucci?

  So, so every debate has a line, you know, President Reagan said, there you go again. And then with Mondale, he said, let's not use age in this debate. I don't want to challenge my candidate's youth and inexperience. There are killer lines or, you know, Dan Quayle, you're no Jack Kennedy, I know Jack Kennedy. The killer line tonight was, I don't understand what he just said. And I don't think he understands what he just said. That was the killer line.

• 11:20Katty Kay?

  Now, that got to his kind of the slightly rambling circuitous way. I mean, maybe Joe Biden's just been in the Senate too long, and that's how senators speak.

• 11:27Anthony Scaramucci?

  I want to be fair to Joe Biden. He got better. But let me tell you something about American politics and American television. If you're in the Super Bowl and Pat Mahomes goes up 38 to zero. And you're in the first quarter, you're shutting the TV off before the half. I mean, unless you know, you want to watch J Lo or something like that for the halftime concert. But, but I'm telling you, I believe that these ratings went down over the course of the debate. People like you and I stayed on because we're political aficionados. But I think the American people are like, okay, this guy's getting destroyed here. It's not even a fight. This is like Rocky, uh, you know, Apollo Creed with Drago and Rocky IV. Throw the down and the guy got wiped out and they shut the TV off.

• 12:12Anthony Scaramucci?

  Why are you laughing?

• 12:14Katty Kay?

  I love that you're bringing in the boxing analogies for, you know.

• 12:18Anthony Scaramucci?

  It was like watching a senior citizens.

• 12:20Katty Kay?

  You texted me, Anthony, during it saying, this is a 15 round fight and it's been the knockout at the third round. I had no idea what that was.

• 12:27Anthony Scaramucci?

  I've never watched it.

• 12:27Katty Kay?

  I've never watched the fight in my life.

• 12:29Anthony Scaramucci?

  It was like watching a senior citizens MMA fight. And you're like, you gotta be kidding me.

• 12:36Katty Kay?

  Okay.

• 12:36Anthony Scaramucci?

  Whoever convinced of the fight, what are you doing? What are you doing?

• 12:39Katty Kay?

  And there are bits that'll get replayed. We've gone through a couple of them. It'll be the brain freeze moment where he kind of loses his way and ends up. He was talking about COVID and then suddenly talks about Medicare or something. And then it'll be that bit, Donald Trump saying, I don't know. I have no idea what he was just saying and I don't think he did either. But there was one other line that I'm surprised you haven't brought this up. Where Trump says, I didn't have sex with a porn star. It's not a line you often get in American presidential debates.

• 13:05Anthony Scaramucci?

  Somebody's bringing up in the comments, God bless whoever brought this up in the comments. I'm touching wood wherever you have wood. Okay. So, I mean, that is something I said, I think in the fourth grade. Okay. And so, and then Trump projecting, he turns the bikes, let's not act like children.

• 13:22Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Anthony Scaramucci?

  But I, I didn't bang the porn star and I'm touching wood wherever there is wood. And let me tell you something, okay? He is an entertaining SOB, whether you like him or dislike him. And this is theater. This is a popularity contest. It's not a hiring decision for the American people. And, you know, the question now, and I want to throw this back to you, Katty Kay, because you live in Washington. They are, there's going to be a bee swarm or shark infestation at the White House tomorrow. Joe Biden drop out of the race. What do you think happens?

• 13:56Katty Kay?

  Look, I think you're right. The, what is it? The Democrats always like to say the bedwetting begins tomorrow. I mean, it's beginning tonight. I'm, you look through your Twitter feed and there are influential Biden supporters in the media who are calling for Joe Biden to step down and for, for one of the people you mentioned, Gavin Newsom, Meg Whitmer, Gina Raimondo. It's very, very late in the race for that to happen. It could theoretically be done if Joe Biden woke up tomorrow morning and reflected on this performance and said, look, the American people's concerns about my age are legitimate. And I just couldn't handle that debate and that was a terrible performance.

• 14:36Katty Kay?

  So I am going to step down. In theory, you could have another Democrat step into the race. I don't know how you would do it, whether they would all jump in and you'd have a very, very short, primaries are over, so it would have to be done at the convention. But I have never heard from the Biden campaign, not once, that this is something that he is considering doing. Up until tonight, this is America's choice. This is what America has to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanuts, sweet, sweet caramel, wrapping you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 16:21Speaker 07

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• 16:49Anthony Scaramucci?

  I'm sitting here, I'm flummoxed by what just happened. Like, he had a week to prepare. He's at Camp David. They've got the guy that played Donald Trump in 2020. You know, Andrew Yang, who ran for president in 2020, said he debated Joe Biden seven times on stage in 2020. This is not the Joe Biden of 2020. And so then the question is, guys, what is Joe Biden going to be like in 2025, 26, 27, 28? What are you guys doing? Okay, I was willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt. As I've said, some things have gone well for him. He's done things generally well.

• 17:31Anthony Scaramucci?

  And I do think he will protect the system and the democracy. But if you're not up to face Donald Trump, and you're not up to face somebody that was being accused of being a part of the insurrection, forget about the 34 felonies, as you know, I think that's a Joker case. But you have a documents case, you have an election fraud case. If you can't face this guy, and you can't verbally jujitsu this guy and hit him a few times, and you're sitting there misremembering your lines. Uh, you, someone's gotta get, you know, someone's gotta tell you the truth. I know he's the president.

• 18:05Katty Kay?

  I think he knew how badly he did. After that moment where his brain froze and he lost his train of thought, you could tell in his face, don't you think that he knew that that was, had been a really bad moment? And then he came back from the break and he seemed nervous. Um, that we're getting a lot of questions about whether Joe Biden is now gonna step down.

• 18:23Anthony Scaramucci?

  Can I just say, can I just say one thing though? Donald Trump would be masterful tomorrow morning if he gets to a podium in a compassionate way.

• 18:33Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 18:33Anthony Scaramucci?

  Says, hey, I debated Joe Biden last night. He has served the country for 50 years. I think it's pretty evident that he's not the right guy to serve the country for the next four years, but I'm a compassionate person.

• 18:47Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 18:48Anthony Scaramucci?

  You see what I mean?

• 18:49Katty Kay?

  And I'm a patriot.

• 18:49Anthony Scaramucci?

  I'm a patriot.

• 18:50Katty Kay?

  And I want the best for the president and I want the best for the White House and the country.

• 18:54Anthony Scaramucci?

  Why don't you, why don't you pick some of these comments?

• 18:56Katty Kay?

  Really good ones here. Um, so Leo Fordham has written in, do you think it's too late for the Democrats? Even if they do replace Biden, I feel like it could be really hard to overcome the feeling brought on by him, no matter who may step in. I think that's such a, I mean, that's a very smart, uh, take on this because has Biden tainted? The Democrat, look, this is a hypothetical. I don't even, if I had to put my, my money somewhere and Anthony's fortune is enormously superior to mine. If I was actually, let's, I'm gonna bet Anthony's fortune on this because that's a much more exciting bet. If I was gonna bet Anthony's fortune on this, I would bet that Joe Biden does not step down. But if he did step down, do we think that actually now the rest of the Democratic Party is just being tainted by this experience?

• 19:41Katty Kay?

  How do they come back from this?

• 19:42Anthony Scaramucci?

  I want to stay for the record that Katty K has more Prada than I have. Okay? I just want to make everybody, everybody knows that, okay?

• 19:49Katty Kay?

  Okay, I'm not gonna tell you any more secrets about my.

• 19:52Anthony Scaramucci?

  My God.

• 19:53Katty Kay?

  I, that's it, Anthony. You are outside my shopping secret circle now. That's it. You've blown it. Look, you've made me blush. I mean, that's just not, I am not.

• 20:02Anthony Scaramucci?

  I'm glad I made you blush after you're trying to disclose my net worth on live YouTube. All right, but.

• 20:06Katty Kay?

  That is the first and only time I've ever shopped in that short store. And if I ever shop there again, I'm not telling you. I tell you.

• 20:12Anthony Scaramucci?

  Don't, don't feel bad about it. I'll probably have to get you a Prada gift certificate at this point. But, but here, here, here's the thing I would say. About that statement, I think that that is true, but I would still throw the hail Mary. They had these super delegates. They could get them to drop out. They could have a super delegate meeting before the convention. And then they could say, here's the guys we're going with. Uh, and then they got us consolidated and they got to unify. There's only one person in America that could tell Kamala Harris to step out of that ticket. I believe that's Barack Obama. Uh, I think she's got to get promised a Supreme Court justice. Uh, appointment to do that. Uh, rumor was that they offered her, uh, the last one.

• 20:53Anthony Scaramucci?

  She said no to that one, but I think at this point it would be good for the country for her to do that. They go with two younger people. Maybe it's a Raimondo and a Shapiro or Whitman. Whitmer and a Shapiro, I don't know, but they could. Okay, uh, people are mentioning Gavin Newsom. Whether you like Gavin Newsom, you like what he's done in California or not, he would have wiped the floor with Donald Trump tonight. He, he would have been on point. He crushed Ron DeSantis on Fox News a couple of months ago. He would have been on point, he would have been in control of the facts and he would have crushed, uh, Donald Trump tonight.

• 21:28Katty Kay?

  Yeah, Josh Shapiro would have done the same. He's an excellent debater. He's so smart. Uh, he's the next generation, you know, the, the governor of Pennsylvania. They, I think, I mean, I had a really interesting conversation with a Democrat about two days ago, who was saying, look, there's these whispers going around that actually, I mean, this may be them trying to console themselves, that if Trump wins in November, maybe that's not so bad for the party because they will, the Democrats will do really well in the midterms and then it sets them up for 28 with this whole next generation. I think that's pulling at straws.

• 21:59Anthony Scaramucci?

  By the way, Katie, I'm just letting you know, if I was debating you, I bring up one thing, Prada, you go bright red.

• 22:04Katty Kay?

  Yeah, Jesus Christ.

• 22:05Anthony Scaramucci?

  I gotta, I gotta prepare you better, okay? I'm gonna handle you. I'm gonna handle you. We have to debate each other, okay?

• 22:11Katty Kay?

  Listen, cone of secrecy here.

• 22:14Anthony Scaramucci?

  All right.

• 22:14Katty Kay?

  You have lost my trust. Okay, so, uh, let's get another couple of questions.

• 22:19Anthony Scaramucci?

  How do you turn it around? Okay, Katie, how do you turn it around? That's a great question by John O'Hur.

• 22:23Katty Kay?

  Yeah, the problem is that Democrats have come out over the last six months and said, We recognize he's old, but I tell you that when he's not got the cameras on him, when I'm with him in the Oval Office, he's super sharp and he's on it. And that is the Joe Biden who is leading the country. Well, now the country feels they've seen Joe Biden without a prompter in front of them, like he had at the State of the Union, and they're just not going to believe those Democrats anymore. So I think there has to be some candor. I think you're right. They've got to come out and say, the president, you know, felt that really didn't represent, you know, his best effort of running the country. But this is all the things he's done for America. And he's, you know, the debate format didn't work for him.

• 23:06Katty Kay?

  You know, he's got this stutter that he's overcoming. I'd get the surrogates out there. I don't know that I'd get Joe Biden out there saying that was a fuck up. I would get surrogates out there a lot saying, the two minutes is very hard for somebody with a stutter, but he's running the country. They just have to keep going, litigating his, his record. And we keep hearing that the Biden campaign team is the best in the business, that General Malley Dillon is fantastic. This is what I hear time and again. The people around him in, in Delaware are really good, and that's why they're so confident. They've got this, they know what they're doing. They're building this machine. We've spoken about this on the podcast, Antony. They've got these offices around the country. They've hired people around the country. They've got a really good campaign machine.

• 23:48Katty Kay?

  After seeing tonight's debate, I don't know that I trust that narrative. If that's what they are producing after a week of prep, how good are they at everything else? I mean, I don't know. Why should I believe that, that this machine they're building around the country is so great? If they can't get through a live debate?

• 24:05Anthony Scaramucci?

  One, one of the comments is, will there be a 25th Amendment vote on, at the House? I, I don't remember the procedures exactly, but you've got to get the cabinet involved. Uh, so you got to get the cabinet to say the president's incompetent, and then they push the vote to the floor. I don't think you're going to get the cabinet of Joe Biden to do that. But I think people are saying that to me all night in the texts. I have a question for you, Katty K.

• 24:29Katty Kay?

  Go on.

• 24:29Anthony Scaramucci?

  September 10th.

• 24:31Katty Kay?

  Um, I, I don't think it happens at this point.

• 24:33Anthony Scaramucci?

  How could it happen?

• 24:34Katty Kay?

  How can it happen?

• 24:35Anthony Scaramucci?

  How could it happen?

• 24:35Katty Kay?

  The second debate, I mean, how can the, I mean, but on the other hand, if they don't do it, that's an admission of how badly he did.

• 24:41Anthony Scaramucci?

  You know, Carl, I could just let you know Carl Weathers, who played Apollo Creed, when you knock him through the ropes like that, he can't come back and fight again, right?

• 24:50Katty Kay?

  Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I'm sure that's sporting reference right over my head.

• 24:54Anthony Scaramucci?

  It's Rocky IV. It's Rocky IV. It's my vintage. I was 21 when the movie came out.

• 25:00Katty Kay?

  Okay, why was more not done by the moderators to fact check Zach Taylor? That's a good question.

• 25:05Anthony Scaramucci?

  So I don't think they had the time to do that. And I think they made a decision not to do that because they were on a shot clock, two minutes over here, two minutes over there. And I think that one of the big things about doing it at CNN is that CNN is perceived to be anti-Trump. And so I don't think they could have done that. I think it would have played very bad for the moderators and very bad for CNN. And there's something about Donald Trump that we all have to accept. He can say two contradictory things at the same time and he gets away with it. Why does he do that? I don't know. He's born on June 14th. He's a Gemini. Maybe there are two people trapped inside of one body and so we let him do it.

• 25:46Anthony Scaramucci?

  But other people couldn't do that. John Kerry was for the war, before he was against it. We went after him. We're throwing haymakers at him.

• 25:55Katty Kay?

  I remember that.

• 25:56Anthony Scaramucci?

  Donald Trump could say anything. I love crypto. I hate crypto. Last night I woke up and decided to hate it again. More like it's good, man, whatever you want to say.

• 26:04Katty Kay?

  Actually, you know what he did that was smart tonight? Donald Trump, he went in with one message and that was about immigration. And almost every answer, whether it was about the economy, whether it was about climate, whether it was about healthcare, whether it was about inflation, he brought it back time and again to immigration. He kept, whether it was about African American voters, he would talk about black jobs. The immigrants have come in and taken black jobs around the country. Kind of thing Joe Biden would never say and probably wouldn't get away with. But he did, he managed to stay on message.

• 26:36Anthony Scaramucci?

  I was taking my luggage off the luggage rack this morning. I took a red eye from LA, Delta flight. There was an African American. It was first class. Don't start. I was in first class. Okay. And the there was an African American guy next to me. He looks at me. I'm taking my luggage off. He goes mooch. I said, yes. He says, you're the man. He goes, are you gonna vote for Trump? Just let me know. You're voting for Trump? I said, no, you know, I'm not voting for Trump. If you know who I am, you know, I'm not voting for Trump. He says to me, I'm voting for Trump. You're voting for Trump. I said, yeah. He goes, by the way, whether or not you think the country's racist, you think Trump's racist, it doesn't matter to me. What's going on now at the border is nothing that anybody can tolerate. I'm voting for Trump.

• 27:16Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Anthony Scaramucci?

  And that, hey, look, that's a sample. I'm getting my luggage.

• 27:20Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Anthony Scaramucci?

  I'm just making the point.

• 27:22Katty Kay?

  It resonates. When he said that, you know, immigrants are coming in and taking black jobs. I mean, literally called the black jobs, but it's like that resonates around the country. Okay. Wait a second. Lisa's much smarter than I am and quicker on the draw because she says, as a press guy, I want to ask Antony, how do you spin Biden's performance? Go on, let me throw it back to you.

• 27:38Anthony Scaramucci?

  I would say that the president was not well tonight. He had a cough. We should have told people that. We didn't tell them that. He was right about a lot of his facts, but he was he was slow footed on responding to Donald Trump's lies tonight. But if you check, I think we have to relitigate Mr. Trump's record versus Mr. Biden's record. But let's face it, President Biden did not have a great night tonight. He wasn't feeling well. And by the way, there's nobody in the American public that would do that. He would score points if he did that, but these guys can never admit weakness. They can never admit any blood was spilt anywhere. So there'll be a group of hacks in that spin room right now, trying to tell you how well Biden

• 28:19Anthony Scaramucci?

  did. And they they will do what I did. They'll list all the lies that Donald Trump had. And it's a bunch of nonsense. Okay, this is imagery. This is verbiage. This is command. This is self confidence. This is how do you litigate against somebody else? This is litigation. And and he didn't have it. And if you want to pretend that he had it, that's fine. We can pretend that he had it. But I got to call balls and strikes. Okay, because I'm with the amenable Katty K. And I can't be sitting up here hacking for Joe Biden. I'm not that kind of a person anyway.

• 28:49Katty Kay?

  Yeah, no, look, we're gonna always call it as we see it. And

• 28:52Anthony Scaramucci?

  Was it not terrifying how the debate degenerated into back and forth about golf handicaps? It was terrifying on a number of different levels. Okay, so my 25-year-old son texted me and said that he watched the Nixon Kennedy debate this morning. And he said, my god, dad, I mean, this is degenerated into this childlike spit for spat. And, you know, the guy on Barstool Sports, and I was like, let's skip the election, and let's have these guys go play golf. Let him play 18 holes for the presidency. But it doesn't matter. The point is, that's where we are in our society, and we have to break that fever. And by the way, we were much smarter at this. In 1944,

• 29:37Anthony Scaramucci?

  Henry Wallace was basically a communist. Roosevelt went to people, said, hey, I'm obviously dying. You can just tell by looking at me, I'm obviously dying. I'm gonna run anyway, because I can win this thing for the Democrats. But you better get to the convention and pick somebody that you guys like, because I'm not gonna make it 44 to 48. And they picked Harry Truman. So what are we doing right now as a society? Are we just gonna play identity politics? Or are we gonna have performance politics? If somebody like, if I was on Biden's board, I would say that sucked. I'm the chairman of the board. You've got to step down. Who should replace you? Let's have a caucus. Let's get in the room. We have these super delegates. And let's take another shot at

• 30:21Anthony Scaramucci?

  this thing, because you don't want Trump to be the president. Again, this is me talking to Biden. If I'm Trump's team right now, I'm saying, leave the champagne on ice, get to a microphone tomorrow, and be compassionate to Joe Biden, and get back on the campaign trail. Trump said something tonight that resonated. Whether people like this or not, he said, hey, I'm back in this because he's not doing a good job. I wouldn't be here. Okay, and it resonates with people. He's gonna, trust me, he was testing that tonight. He's gonna use that night now, over and over again, at all these rallies.

• 30:53Katty Kay?

  Yeah, and I mean, like I said, I think he was very good at staying on message tonight. I mean, he talks in these crazy superlatives that, you know, the economy was better under Trump than ever before. The border is more open than it has ever been. I mean, he talks in ways that aren't supported by the facts, but there wasn't a chance for the moderators to fact check him, or they decided that they were not going to fact check him. I'm not quite sure why they decided not to fact check him. And maybe Joe Biden should have done that fact checking, but Joe Biden couldn't jump in with punch. He could have done some fact checking. He could have jumped in with a punchy sentence or two. I mean, when when Donald Trump came in and said, you know, now there's evidence that Nancy Pelosi didn't,

• 31:37Katty Kay?

  you know, accept the guards that I offered on January the sixth. Joe Biden needed to have a fact there and come back and that's not true. There is no evidence that Nancy Pelosi was offered that guard. There's no evidence that she turned it down. You know, that is a lie, but he can't put it that succinctly. And so he tries, that should have been Joe Biden's strongest moment, the January the sixth stuff. And Donald Trump got away with this with saying stuff that wasn't true. Um, but he got away with it because Joe Biden isn't agile enough. I mean, I think that that's the big takeaway from this debate. Joe Biden is a lot older than he was. This other quick question here. Is RFK Junior a side winner of this debate?

• 32:16Anthony Scaramucci?

  On the margin, I Louise, I think RFK Junior is a side winner. I think the problem is he's yet to get on all of the state ballots. And so he doesn't have right now any path to 270 electoral votes. But yes, I think he is a side winner because I think he is a guy who is competent. He can talk and he may not agree with them. He has a worm in his brain and this sort of thing. But the president did poorly tonight. And there's somebody here, and I love this commenting section. Hope you don't mind me just saying this. Because someone here is saying that on Twitter right now, on the Democratic handle, they're exclaiming that the president won.

• 32:57Anthony Scaramucci?

  Okay, so when you do that Orwellian type of nonsense, particularly in a society right now with these phones, YouTube, CNN, when you do that kind of nonsense, you're now turning people off. You know, it's better to come at people and tell them the truth. They're going to respect you more. They say, hey, that sucked. We'll be right back at it tomorrow.

• 33:17Katty Kay?

  They're not going to trust anything else you say, right? We've got another five months of this, four months of this campaign. I'm not, if, if they try and spin us that this was a great night for Joe Biden, why am I going to believe them when they say, we have a really good campaign operation and we're confident that we're going to win? I don't believe that.

• 33:33Anthony Scaramucci?

  No, no, no question.

• 33:34Katty Kay?

  If I'm being told, you know, that this was a great night for him. There's somebody here on C, saying that they're watching on C-SPAN, that's interesting, saying that Gavin Newsom is looking very defeated.

• 33:44Anthony Scaramucci?

  By the way, by the way, for Bitcoiners that are on this commenting section, Bitcoin is rallying, by the way, because Trump is quote unquote pro Bitcoin, and you can see Bitcoin rallying tonight with the expectation he's going to win.

• 33:56Katty Kay?

  Have your book sales gone up too?

• 33:58Anthony Scaramucci?

  My book sales?

• 33:59Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Anthony Scaramucci?

  Caddy, you know, as I told you, it's an international bestseller. If you don't believe me, you can walk over here. I'm in my basement right now, and I've got a lot of books here. I can prove to you that it's an international bestseller by the number of books I have personally bought.

• 34:14Katty Kay?

  I'm in my basement too. Between the Halloween decorations and the Christmas decorations, there's a pile of books of mine too that haven't been bought.

• 34:20Anthony Scaramucci?

  Hey, hey, listen, but you're, I've got, I've got both of your books over there on that bookshelf. Both of them are great books. But here's something I want to say to you. I want to get your react. In 2020, boring was good. Remember Volvo, boxy but good? We got a guy who's an elder statesman. He's boring. He's going to cross his legs. He's got the big caps on. He's got a confident smile and we're going to go back to some level of normalcy. Eighty-one million votes. Boring right now is not the flavor of the month. I'm just letting people know this, okay? So the, let's replicate Joe Biden's campaign of 2020. Rongo, you're in 2024.

• 35:01Anthony Scaramucci?

  You're coming out of COVID, you're four years past COVID. The American people don't want that. The American people want a revitalization of America. The American people in the world want an American renewal. They want an American reset where we speak confidently about our alliances. They want somebody going to tell people the truth about the debt. Here's a 10 or 15 year plan to get us out of this problem. That's what the American people want, and they don't want boring, Katty. I want you to respond to that, you know, because I think that's, that's what he was in 2020. It's not working now. Boring plus stuttering plus I don't look like your grandfather anymore. I look like your great grandfather. Okay, go ahead.

• 35:39Katty Kay?

  This is what, okay, this is what's frustrated the Biden campaign is that people in the country have what they call Trump amnesia. They've forgotten what it was like under Donald Trump. They've forgotten what that 2020 moment called for. It was COVID, it was chaos. Donald Trump had been at his most extreme and it was at that moment that people wanted boring. And that's why they wanted Joe Biden. He was solid, he was boring, he was the guy that could beat Donald Trump. So that's why they called for this debate. I mean, this is all the Biden campaign's making. They called for this debate now, early in the campaign, in order to remind people what Donald Trump is really like. They wanted Donald Trump to get up on that stage and be the Donald Trump of 2020. And he wasn't. He didn't tell the truth all the time, but he sounded coherent.

• 36:24Katty Kay?

  He spoke in short sentences. He made sense. He sounded strong. He sounded vibrant. All of the things that the Biden campaign didn't want to happen, Donald Trump brought to the stage. So maybe Donald Trump in a way is going to present himself as back to kind of not boring, but at least strong and fit and healthy. And as he said at one point in the debate, he was talking about abortion. And again, it wasn't true what he was saying, but he was talking about abortion. He said, it's the Democrats who are the radicals. I could see, this is another thing I think he's testing out. I'm not the radical. I'm not the chaos agent. I'm not the one you can't rely on. That's Joe Biden. He's the radical. Look, you can't rely on him. He's too old. That's unsafe.

• 37:09Katty Kay?

  And I think he's going to turn the tables on that.

• 37:10Anthony Scaramucci?

  It's an interesting, it's an interesting point. And I think it could work for him. There's a gentleman by the name of David Hurdisty.

• 37:16Katty Kay?

  By the way, there's somebody saying we should run for presidency in 2028. There's a small hitch there. I wasn't Mooch and Katty for 2028. What a ticket.

• 37:23Anthony Scaramucci?

  Well, first of all, as you know, I'm running for reelection in my marriage, Katty. And I think my wife believes in castration. So I don't, I don't see that in my future. But then again, I don't even think you, I don't think you, I don't think you were born. I don't think you were born here in the US. So I.

• 37:38Katty Kay?

  No, I wouldn't be on that. Okay.

• 37:39Anthony Scaramucci?

  But I, and I probably don't meet the height requirement. But anyway, let me just bring this up. Mooch, I presume you're no longer confident Biden can win. This is from David Hurdisty. Hopefully, sir, I'm pronouncing your name properly. And so I'm going to say something weird here. People are going to probably disagree with me. No, he can still win. Why? This is a very polarized country.

• 37:59Katty Kay?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Anthony Scaramucci?

  This is a very polarized election. People have made their minds up, Katty Kay, already. On the margin, maybe somebody will go for Trump. Maybe the overnight polling will be for Trump. But no, Joe Biden, if he doesn't drop out, assuming he's not going to, he could still win the election. I just don't know how they're going to put him up on September the 10th for another debate. I don't, I don't know how they're going to do that. And David, if they do that, and he performs like this, then we'll be sitting here, hopefully after the debate, hopefully you guys will still be tuning into us. And I'll tell you what I really think, which is no, we won't be able to win. But right now, it's still early, and people are polarizing. They've made up their minds.

• 38:39Katty Kay?

  Yeah. I do think it's worth pointing out, as Zed is saying, it's still over four months away to election day. This was a pretty awful gaffe, but it doesn't mean that Biden's team can't scrape back a lead in that time. And we should, we live in an, talking of amnesia, we live in a kind of amnesia, short-term memory society, right? But I can't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. Yes, this is going to be a terrible bloodbath tomorrow, and Democrats are going to do a lot of bedwetting. And there's going to be a period of anxiety, but there are still four or five months to go, and other things can happen. And we don't know what those things are going to be. And these images are not going to look good for Biden. But other things can get in, in the race between now and November, and people move on, right? They move on to the next thing. They move on to the next conversation.

• 39:24Katty Kay?

  And we should never underestimate the ability of people to forget, like me, what they had for breakfast, or what happened yesterday in a debate.

• 39:31Anthony Scaramucci?

  I agree with all of that. I guess the only thing, the one, a quick point that I would just add for people. Is that what you witnessed from Donald Trump? If you took President Biden off the screen and you just looked at Trump, it was his canned speeches from his rallies. And they should have had quotes from people like Mattis, quotes from people like Kelly, quotes from people like Secretary Esper. Here's what the people that work with you said. You have no executive management skills. You're a chaos-oriented person. You're bringing in Looney Tune people. They should have listed the top 10 things from Project 225.

• 40:08Katty Kay?

  Right.

• 40:09Anthony Scaramucci?

  So what the hell are you doing? You're bringing in, you're going to bring in Looney Tune people. You want to fire 50,000 people in civil service and have them take MAGA tests to see if they can be in the civil service? What the hell are you doing? You're trying to destroy this great country and the ideal and a dream of America. I don't know why they didn't go with that. They were like, we created 15 million jobs.

• 40:31Katty Kay?

  Yeah. Even the democracy section. Somehow Donald Trump came off stronger on the whole democracy section than Joe Biden did, just because his answers were weak, because he didn't, he didn't have answers. He didn't have good anecdotes and he wasn't punching. Okay, I've got no sympathy for saying it's 20 past 11. We've got somebody texting in from Finland saying it's 6:20 in the morning. It's 3:20 PM in New Zealand. I think all of this, my head is spinning and I'm getting jet lag. It is time for us to go to bed, but.

• 40:57Anthony Scaramucci?

  Thank you guys for tuning in though.

• 40:59Katty Kay?

  Thanks for tuning in. And we will be back next week with more of The Rest Is Politics US from me, Caddy K. Good night.

• 41:06Anthony Scaramucci?

  Good night, guys.

• 41:57Speaker 08

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