:00:00. > :00:12.Welcome to Hardtalk, I am Stephen Sackur.
:00:13. > :00:15.Wherever you live in the world the election of Donald Trump
:00:16. > :00:17.as America's next president is a very big deal.
:00:18. > :00:20.He has promised to take the world's most powerful nation in a very
:00:21. > :00:26.My guest today is Anthony Scaramucci, a New York headge
:00:27. > :00:28.My guest today is Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge
:00:29. > :00:31.fund boss, a Trump ally, and right now a member
:00:32. > :01:06.What are Team Trump's priorities for America?
:01:07. > :01:07.Anthony Scaramucci, welcome to Hardtalk.
:01:08. > :01:14.Let's start with transition, you are one of 16 on the board
:01:15. > :01:21.organising the transition, we have characterised
:01:22. > :01:24.it from the outside as chaotic, some use the word disarray.
:01:25. > :01:26.Can you tell me what it is like the inside?
:01:27. > :01:29.I don't know why people are saying that, I can't even find
:01:30. > :01:36.the people who suggest that, I think what happens is that people
:01:37. > :01:39.who are not on the inside feel bitter or upset about that,
:01:40. > :01:41.leak out to the press nasty things about the transition
:01:42. > :01:44.but in fact the transition has gone incredibly well,
:01:45. > :01:45.the committee itself has worked well together,
:01:46. > :01:54.many of us worked together on the campaign.
:01:55. > :01:56.Governor Pence is someone I've known forever and have a great
:01:57. > :02:03.It is not only going well but the President-elect has done
:02:04. > :02:06.a great job reaching out, Democrats, Republicans who worked for him,
:02:07. > :02:09.for me it has been orderly, and the only problem for me
:02:10. > :02:13.with this transition is we have to outwork the President-elect.
:02:14. > :02:16.He is a tireless worker so we are drinking lots of Red Bull
:02:17. > :02:21.Fully one quarter of the transition team, 25%, is made up
:02:22. > :02:26.Three children and his son-in-law, Jarrod Kushner.
:02:27. > :02:28.It is clear they wield an awful lot of influence,
:02:29. > :02:36.He has worked with them for their adult lives,
:02:37. > :02:39.whether they were on the television programme with him or the real
:02:40. > :02:45.I told my oldest son, may you have the arrogance
:02:46. > :02:48.of Donald Trump Junior, which is frankly,
:02:49. > :03:01.These are people who can relate to people...
:03:02. > :03:03.They have the ear of the President-elect in a way
:03:04. > :03:12.Most people have the ear of their own people.
:03:13. > :03:15.What I like about the President-elect is he is a very
:03:16. > :03:18.upfront guy, he won the election because of his authenticity, these
:03:19. > :03:21.people are business partners of his, they happen to be family members,
:03:22. > :03:23.so you're getting three or four for the price of one.
:03:24. > :03:25.But he ran as an anti-elitist, the guy who's going
:03:26. > :03:29.It is hard to understand how appointing your own family
:03:30. > :03:31.to your transition team is anything but perpetuating his
:03:32. > :03:39.I got you, that is a British thing, the peerage, if you will, and...
:03:40. > :03:41.There is some sort of hereditary thing going on.
:03:42. > :03:52.I see it as super-smart advisers he has relied
:03:53. > :03:59.I campaigned with Donnie all throughout Pennsylvania,
:04:00. > :04:04.if this was the president I would ask him for advice,
:04:05. > :04:06.the fact that these are family members, I don't
:04:07. > :04:10.Did Jarrod Kushner, son-in-law, did he feel very strongly
:04:11. > :04:13.about Chris Christie and get him fired, as the first chief
:04:14. > :04:23.I think they related that his father, Charlie,
:04:24. > :04:25.and now Governor Christie, he was the Attorney General,
:04:26. > :04:36.Jarrod has been focused on advising the President-elect,
:04:37. > :04:39.on the campaign and strategy, but has had nothing to do
:04:40. > :04:40.with the relationship with Governor Christie.
:04:41. > :04:43.The President-elect made a decision, and this is something your viewers
:04:44. > :04:48.are probably interested in, he did not want to focus
:04:49. > :04:50.on the campaign's transition until he was done winning,
:04:51. > :04:55.he felt that Governor Romney spent too much time and that in 2012.
:04:56. > :04:58.Once he got there he realised he had to put his number
:04:59. > :05:01.two person in place, Governor Christie met with him
:05:02. > :05:03.on Sunday in Bedminster, he is loyal to Governor Christie,
:05:04. > :05:14.my guess is that Governor Christie is so contributing a fairly decent
:05:15. > :05:16.amount, but Governor Pence, Vice President elect Pence,
:05:17. > :05:19.he will be the number two person in the government,
:05:20. > :05:22.he is the right person to be at the head of the transition team.
:05:23. > :05:25.You said after the election victory became clear
:05:26. > :05:27.now that he is President-elect of the USA I think he's
:05:28. > :05:30.going to handle himself in a way more measured way.
:05:31. > :05:41.No other President-elect would be firing tweets about criticising
:05:42. > :05:43.the way he was characterised on Saturday Night Live,
:05:44. > :05:50.or the way that a cast member of Hamilton treated
:05:51. > :05:55.Donald Trump with his use of Twitter is clearly is thin-skinned today
:05:56. > :05:59.I spend a lot of time with him, I have known him 20 years,
:06:00. > :06:03.I have been in the cauldron with him for the last six months, I don't
:06:04. > :06:10.He is a regular guy, he doesn't like certain things,
:06:11. > :06:13.he is a little bit of a culture warrior, there is a culture war
:06:14. > :06:16.going on in the United States, I don't know if there's one
:06:17. > :06:20.going on here, but when you have paid for your seat and you're
:06:21. > :06:24.sitting in a theatre, even left-leaning drama professors
:06:25. > :06:27.around the United States said that was not an appropriate venue
:06:28. > :06:29.for you to give out a political diatribe.
:06:30. > :06:34.The President-elect, whether you liked this part
:06:35. > :06:39.of his personality or not, 60 million-plus people voted for him
:06:40. > :06:49.All I am getting at is that, yes she is raw and authentic
:06:50. > :06:52.All I am getting at is that, yes he is raw and authentic
:06:53. > :06:56.as you put it, but he is not acting more measured.
:06:57. > :07:01.The speech after he won, I thought it was very measured,
:07:02. > :07:07.very gracious, he has invited Governor Mitt Romney over,
:07:08. > :07:10.he had Ari Emanuel, a Democrat, over the weekend,
:07:11. > :07:12.he has made a huge outreach to people above and
:07:13. > :07:20.All of that is presidential, or Churchillian, in
:07:21. > :07:24.Let's not talk Churchillian, let's just talk about the incredible
:07:25. > :07:27.journey that Mitt Romney and yourself have been on.
:07:28. > :07:31.Mitt Romney ran in 2012 when you supported him.
:07:32. > :07:35.Just a few weeks ago he was describing Donald Trump
:07:36. > :07:38.as a phoney, a fraud, his promises, he said,
:07:39. > :07:42.are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.
:07:43. > :07:46.Mitt Romney is a good friend of yours.
:07:47. > :07:50.You said just a few months ago on Fox News, I don't like the way
:07:51. > :08:00.He is a class divider from the Obama, Hillary Clinton playbook.
:08:01. > :08:11.Im just trying to get to it, you have been with Mitt Romney.
:08:12. > :08:14.I was with Governor Walker at the time and Mr Romney
:08:15. > :08:17.was railing against the hedge fund industry and I have tired of that,
:08:18. > :08:20.I don't like the unnecessary demonisation of my industry
:08:21. > :08:22.and Wall Street, when Wall Street and Main Street are in harmony
:08:23. > :08:25.with each other in the USA the economy does better.
:08:26. > :08:32.When we demonise Wall Street and big people like Elizabeth Warren
:08:33. > :08:38.throw firebombs at Wall Street, it's not good for the economy.
:08:39. > :08:40.You called Donald Trump a class divider.
:08:41. > :08:42.You said, his nonsense campaign will be ended before Thanksgiving.
:08:43. > :08:47.I ran out of holidays because I said it would be done in Thanksgiving,
:08:48. > :08:49.then I said Christmas, I got it completely wrong.
:08:50. > :08:52.This is the beauty of American politics and maybe this is true
:08:53. > :08:56.in the UK, I got it wrong, but I kept my pledge,
:08:57. > :09:00.which was that I would support the eventual Republican nominee.
:09:01. > :09:03.So when Jeb Bush came out of the race I went to see Mr Trump
:09:04. > :09:07.and we got together and I pledge my support to him
:09:08. > :09:11.The big distinction between me and Governor Romney,
:09:12. > :09:14.Mr Trump was throwing firebombs at the hedge fund industry
:09:15. > :09:20.What Governor Romney did however was unilateral.
:09:21. > :09:23.To me, I did not think it was necessary.
:09:24. > :09:26.He probably wishes he walked it back.
:09:27. > :09:30.But I made my peace with Mr Trump, he was throwing bombs at others,
:09:31. > :09:33.and I was throwing them at him, but he respects people
:09:34. > :09:38.People who are willing to tell him if he is right or wrong.
:09:39. > :09:41.And I got very close to him over six months because when he was going
:09:42. > :09:43.through the roller-coaster of the polling, and some
:09:44. > :09:51.of the obnoxiousness in the media, guys like me stayed in the foxhole.
:09:52. > :09:54.Once you've decided to come on-board and what you said since the election
:09:55. > :09:59.is that what you think is so important for people
:10:00. > :10:02.to understand, and you claim the media fails to understand,
:10:03. > :10:04.is that this guy, Donald Trump, is not ideological.
:10:05. > :10:07.He will do whatever it takes, to use the phrase, to make
:10:08. > :10:17.I put it to you that the picks the transition team has come out
:10:18. > :10:18.with, involving you, we are not seeing
:10:19. > :10:20.a nonideological Trump, we are seeing a very ideological
:10:21. > :10:27.I would say that he is a common-sense problem solver
:10:28. > :10:32.Some of the stuff will be right-leaning, some of it
:10:33. > :10:34.will be surprisingly less than right-leaning.
:10:35. > :10:37.For example the infrastructure plan which a Democrat
:10:38. > :10:40.senator is embracing, that is probably not the standard
:10:41. > :10:43.fare for conservative Republican politics in the USA.
:10:44. > :10:47.So he is an ideologically expressing some right-leaning and left-leaning
:10:48. > :10:51.stuff but he is not looking at the world.
:10:52. > :10:54.And the last two presidents in my opinion, one came
:10:55. > :11:01.from neo-conservatism, prosecuted a war in Iraq
:11:02. > :11:04.and tried to promote democracy, it was a failure, President Obama
:11:05. > :11:07.came at it from an economic progressivism filter,
:11:08. > :11:10.they brought us the Affordable care act which according to Mr Trump
:11:11. > :11:17.has been a disaster, Mr Trump will be more
:11:18. > :11:20.about what is right or wrong for the American people
:11:21. > :11:27.I want to make it clear to your views.
:11:28. > :11:37.I want to make it clear to your viewers.
:11:38. > :11:39.But on the picks, let's talk about the picks,
:11:40. > :11:54.A guy who is a hero to the alt-right movement.
:11:55. > :11:59.Breitbart news, you are aware of the sort of stuff
:12:00. > :12:03.Here is the thing that is going on, as part of the culture war,
:12:04. > :12:06.we have to make a decision on this, there is stuff on Breitbart that
:12:07. > :12:08.I don't agree with but the individual liberty,
:12:09. > :12:11.to go back to John Stuart Mill, the concept of individual
:12:12. > :12:13.liberty, is the acceptance of the ideas of other people.
:12:14. > :12:18.What the left likes about the first Amendment is when you are agreeing
:12:19. > :12:21.with them it is OK to have the first Amendment, when you disagree
:12:22. > :12:26.Steve Bannon is a brilliant strategist to understand the common
:12:27. > :12:30.cause of all people of colour in the working class,
:12:31. > :12:33.the lower-middle-class, and the middle class.
:12:34. > :12:36.And so that is one of the reasons we won the election.
:12:37. > :12:47.But you said to me that one of the most important things
:12:48. > :12:50.Donald Trump did was give what you describe as a very gracious
:12:51. > :12:52.speech after his victory, talking about bringing the nation
:12:53. > :12:56.together, binding the wounds, in Stephen Bannon we are talking
:12:57. > :12:59.about a guy who ran a news website which, and to take a few other
:13:00. > :13:02.headlines, said things like this, of Bill Kristol, Republican
:13:03. > :13:10.Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy.
:13:11. > :13:15.And you decided, this guy should be the chief strategist
:13:16. > :13:19.It is an intellectual debate, that is not his byline.
:13:20. > :13:27.It is a blogging site where people can log on their opinions
:13:28. > :13:34.What he and Breitbart said at the top of that thing is that
:13:35. > :13:36.you are going to be able to express yourself,
:13:37. > :13:38.that is what first Amendment rights are about.
:13:39. > :13:42.What the left does in our society is they want to censor and make
:13:43. > :13:45.politically correct everything in society and the average person
:13:46. > :13:52.So I don't agree with that headline you said, I am also a gay rights
:13:53. > :13:54.activist, I have given to the American unity pact,
:13:55. > :14:02.And this will be the first American president in US history
:14:03. > :14:08.entering the White House with a pro-gay rights stance.
:14:09. > :14:11.Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mole
:14:12. > :14:14.Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mall
:14:15. > :14:18.So listen, Steve Bannon, he is actually, the weird thing
:14:19. > :14:23.about him is he is actually a Zionist, so there is now
:14:24. > :14:31.anti-Semitism, there is not one aspect of his life that has any
:14:32. > :14:34.anti-Semitism in it, and like me, who is not a jew, and we will go
:14:35. > :14:37.back to Winston Churchill, all three of us are secular Zionist.
:14:38. > :14:42.So he is not an anti-Semite, let's take it off the table.
:14:43. > :14:45.You don't like the language on the website, but I love
:14:46. > :14:48.I want to put one other name out there.
:14:49. > :14:50.I understand where you're coming from, sitting on this
:14:51. > :14:52.transition team, you are not the only member on it,
:14:53. > :14:55.but I want to know how comfortable you are with, for example,
:14:56. > :14:58.General Michael Flynn, who will now be national security
:14:59. > :15:03.adviser, a man who described Islam as a malignant cancer,
:15:04. > :15:08.and has said that the fear of muslims is rational.
:15:09. > :15:11.Now, you are just one member of the transition team,
:15:12. > :15:15.Yes, I like the general a great deal, I have an enormous
:15:16. > :15:20.His service of the country, the book that he just wrote,
:15:21. > :15:24.a bestselling New York Times book, and I spent a lot of time with him
:15:25. > :15:26.during the transition, and I have also been to Afghanistan
:15:27. > :15:32.and Iraq on troop support missions, so I think, again, this stuff
:15:33. > :15:36.is getting filtered in certain ways in the media and it gets spun a bit,
:15:37. > :15:39.which is fine, but what the general is basically saying
:15:40. > :15:41.is that the religion is being hijacked by a group
:15:42. > :15:47.of people that we would like to call radical Islamic terrorists.
:15:48. > :15:49.President Obama does not like the word.
:15:50. > :15:52.Secretary Clinton and Susan Rice don't like the word but we need
:15:53. > :15:59.When you read the Koran and you read the text in the Koran that
:16:00. > :16:03.call for the bombing and desecration of infidels,
:16:04. > :16:06.I don't know if you are a practising Muslim, I am not,
:16:07. > :16:09.I am Roman Catholic, I would really not like Christians
:16:10. > :16:13.to be wiped out in what is now a caliphate known as Isis.
:16:14. > :16:15.There is more Christian terror going on in the Middle East right
:16:16. > :16:19.now than in the last seven or 800 years.
:16:20. > :16:22.I think it is nonsense, and we have to stop,
:16:23. > :16:25.and take a pause, and call right and wrong, and dial down
:16:26. > :16:33.So General Flynn will have a very good plan, what your viewers need
:16:34. > :16:37.to know is that he is a very deliberate, very thoughtful guy.
:16:38. > :16:41.Wait till you see the rest of his team, the Defence Secretary picks.
:16:42. > :16:44.The American people will think a lot about this the way we did
:16:45. > :16:46.in 1980, that we will work on peace through strength.
:16:47. > :16:52.You have had warmongers in past presidents, and you have had
:16:53. > :16:54.warmongers as past secretaries of state, but none of these
:16:55. > :17:02.Do you understand why so many people around the world are worried that
:17:03. > :17:04.Donald Trump threatens two of the fundamental pillars
:17:05. > :17:06.of America's International strategy, going back to the period before
:17:07. > :17:13.That is, a multilateral involvement in security through the Nato
:17:14. > :17:18.alliance and a multilateral commitment to free trade through
:17:19. > :17:23.He just made positive statements about Nato.
:17:24. > :17:28.Mr Trump has a really good handle on the practicality of what you need
:17:29. > :17:34.to keep global peace, and we can go right back
:17:35. > :17:37.to the three pillars, the first is, a strong military,
:17:38. > :17:39.even Thomas Hobbes said in Leviathan that one great hegemonic power
:17:40. > :17:41.will suppress the internecine conflict that happens
:17:42. > :17:44.round the world, whether it is Pax Britannia or Pax Romana.
:17:45. > :17:48.In the case of United States we have been a benevolent superpower
:17:49. > :17:51.and so you have got to get the peace through strength pillar
:17:52. > :17:58.On the alliance front we are very smart people and Mr Trump recognises
:17:59. > :18:01.the need to strengthen alliances and not decentralise them.
:18:02. > :18:05.The last piece of economic independence is trade,
:18:06. > :18:08.and I think Mr Trump is going to end up becoming
:18:09. > :18:14.He is the guy who accused China of raping the United States
:18:15. > :18:23.In fact he has described several multilateral trade deals including
:18:24. > :18:28.Is that language, you are a very successful businessman,
:18:29. > :18:31.I think that word is probably strong.
:18:32. > :18:34.I am not a politician, I am more of a business person.
:18:35. > :18:40.The rhetoric, the bellicosity, is sometimes used in a campaign
:18:41. > :18:49.to galvanise support and bring the voters out.
:18:50. > :18:51.But let's talk about trade, I studied it on behalf
:18:52. > :19:01.The United States since 1945, we unbalanced trade agreements
:19:02. > :19:05.The State Department and the Treasury worked on it
:19:06. > :19:07.so that we could create burgeoning middle classes
:19:08. > :19:12.Every one of those trade agreements, the Marshall plan, $13.7 billion,
:19:13. > :19:16.So, what we know as free trade, goods and services flow
:19:17. > :19:18.into the United States freely, our goods and services
:19:19. > :19:21.are embargoed in certain markets to protect the labour markets
:19:22. > :19:26.That was a very smart strategy for the USA,
:19:27. > :19:29.I'm not here to say it wasn't, but you get winners and losers
:19:30. > :19:32.when you implement a strategy like that, NAFTA is an example,
:19:33. > :19:34.we have lost 70,000 factories in the United States
:19:35. > :19:39.So you are hollowing out these communities,
:19:40. > :19:42.you are hollowing out, you are forcing people,
:19:43. > :19:44.8 million Americans slipped below the poverty line
:19:45. > :19:56.We just had Jason Furman on the programme, his
:19:57. > :19:59.He said that the data is absolutely irrefutable,
:20:00. > :20:01.immigration into the United States has been a driver of
:20:02. > :20:08.Donald Trump is for very strict immigration controls,
:20:09. > :20:10.you are a guy who wants to see continued economic growth,
:20:11. > :20:14.Maybe I work in a different transition or a different campaign
:20:15. > :20:19.What he has said publicly, and I have clips of it,
:20:20. > :20:21.he has said he wants waves and waves of immigration.
:20:22. > :20:26.Let's talk about immigration then we can talk about the wall.
:20:27. > :20:34.But he said he wants waves of immigration, he would just
:20:35. > :20:44.You have had bipartisan presidents and Congresses sign immigration
:20:45. > :20:47.law and all he is saying is we have not enforced those laws,
:20:48. > :20:49.for whatever reason, we have 11 million, 12 million
:20:50. > :20:52.people living in the USA who came in without the legal process,
:20:53. > :20:55.we have to resolve that one way or the other,
:20:56. > :20:58.Democrat or Republican, Donald Trump or some other
:20:59. > :21:00.Democrat or Republican, Donald Trump or some other politician,
:21:01. > :21:06.My guess is he will be the guy to do it, a great person to do it.
:21:07. > :21:09.On the wall, I think you need the President-elect on his word that
:21:10. > :21:11.he's going to build a wall.
:21:12. > :21:14.And he's going to get Mexico to pay for it?
:21:15. > :21:16.Everybody in Mexico thinks that is absurd.
:21:17. > :21:22.He can make Mexico pay for it if you want.
:21:23. > :21:27.He can make Mexico pay for it if he wants.
:21:28. > :21:30.If he wants Mexico to pay for it they will pay for it.
:21:31. > :21:32.But what you need to understand is the relationship
:21:33. > :21:37.Mexico is in desperate need of help from the United States
:21:38. > :21:40.Mexico would probably also benefit from that wall
:21:41. > :21:42.because of a reduction in drug trafficking into the United States
:21:43. > :21:46.would delegitimise further the drug cartels and make them less economic.
:21:47. > :21:51.The same way the USA during the Bush administration helped Colombia
:21:52. > :21:59.we probably have to go down and help Mexico.
:22:00. > :22:02.If we do that and we clean up some of this horrific stuff
:22:03. > :22:06.going on then you are not going to have an immigration problem
:22:07. > :22:11.The general point is you have to convince governments around
:22:12. > :22:14.the world, you happen to be in London right now but we know that
:22:15. > :22:16.Mr Trump has already seen the Japanese Prime Minister,
:22:17. > :22:19.you have got to convince people that this guy, far from being
:22:20. > :22:22.a danger to the world, is going to be somebody that
:22:23. > :22:25.governments around the world can put trust in and can work with.
:22:26. > :22:32.I think the Japanese Prime Minister came out of the meeting and said
:22:33. > :22:34.he was a person he thought he could trust.
:22:35. > :22:36.That was literally the statement that the Prime Minister of Japan
:22:37. > :22:46.What I see happening is, like what happens in life,
:22:47. > :22:50.there is a convergence between how the media presents somebody,
:22:51. > :22:53.how the sound bites happen on a campaign, and then how,
:22:54. > :22:54.when you interact with a person face-to-face,
:22:55. > :22:57.there might be a spread between what your perception is and
:22:58. > :23:11.I think is that gap closes then the world community will be very
:23:12. > :23:13.happy to have him as the president of the United States.
:23:14. > :23:16.As a final thought, you will be in the administration when it
:23:17. > :23:21.If I am asked to do something for the President
:23:22. > :23:27.of the United States, is an American patriot and somebody
:23:28. > :23:30.lots people I will probably say yes to something like that,
:23:31. > :23:32.but I also have a great business I am running,
:23:33. > :23:35.I started from scratch, I grew up in a blue-collar family,
:23:36. > :23:39.my parents did not go to college, and so I am very blessed with a good
:23:40. > :23:42.American dream story and I am very happy where I am right now.
:23:43. > :23:45.What I need to do in the next three months is focused on helping him
:23:46. > :23:50.That is the principal focus right now.
:23:51. > :23:52.We have to end there, but thank you.
:23:53. > :24:04.Really appreciated, thank you very much indeed.