Getty Images; BI
Anthony Scaramucci has no shortage of hot takes.
The prominent investor and political commentator won’t hesitate to put Donald Trump on blast, and has been warning anyone who will listen that the president’s trade policy is misguided.
“You’re coming into the inauguration with 4% unemployment, 2.9% GDP growth, and a trendline down for inflation,” Scaramucci said in a recent interview with Business Insider. “And this man — 80 days later, he destroyed us.”
It’s hard to believe that just eight years ago, Scaramucci was Trump’s spokesperson. Eleven days after his appointment as White House communications director in July 2017, Scaramucci got dismissed, which the vocal Trump critic now sees as a point of pride.
The war of words with Trump goes both ways. White House spokesman Kush Desai told BI: “Anthony Scaramucci is a fraud and a disgraced clown with no standing to comment on President Trump’s historic action to finally address the national emergency posed by our country’s chronic trade deficits.”
Scaramucci is no stranger to such criticism. It doesn’t stop him from speaking his mind on Trump’s trade and economic policy — or how Republicans and Democrats should fight back.
Why Republicans will separate from Trump
Over the course of his career in politics and finance, Scaramucci has been tied to both major US political parties and now finds himself somewhere in the middle.
The financier has seesawed between Democrats and Republicans, supporting Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton before distancing himself from them. He called Trump a “hack politician” on Fox Business in 2015 and endorsed other Republicans in 2016, but eventually joined Trump’s team. He then got fired by Trump but still backed him, before changing his tune in 2019. He then supported Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024.
This back-and-forth suggests Scaramucci has become a man without a party in the Trump age, and he has a hunch that he’s not alone.
In the coming years, Scaramucci thinks other disaffected Republicans may stray from Trump’s populism and form a new party, just as Republicans split off from the Whigs in the 1850s.
“The new Whig party is the MAGA party, which has the Republican name — in name only,” Scaramucci said on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s podcast in early April. He added that “they’re the true RINOs,” using the acronym for Republicans in name only.
This fissure will follow the implosion of Trump’s trade and economic policies, in Scaramucci’s view. Republicans control the White House and Congress, so there will be no one else to blame.
For most of the last decade, resisting Trump has been a career-ending mistake for Republicans. But if the next year and a half goes how Scaramucci thinks it will, politicians who’ve been friendly with Trump may have to create separation from him ahead of the midterm elections.
“There’s no House Republican that’s going to go into ’26 and say, ‘Hey, we’re in a steep recession as a result of [the] Smoot-Hawley redo in 2025, and we’re with Donald Trump,'” Scaramucci said. “Because Donald Trump is going to be a lame duck the day after the election is over in 2026.”
Trump won’t be around forever, as the US Constitution prevents presidents from being elected more than twice. That could give Republicans the courage they need to go against their leader.
“I don’t think the Republicans are going to be able to say, ‘This is phenomenal — the “orange cult leader” is awesome,'” Scaramucci said. “I don’t see that. I think that his status — the bronze statue turns into paper mache, and then he starts to get hit by the other Republicans like a piñata.”
Democrats also need a shake-up
Although Scaramucci dislikes Trump, he thinks Democrats can still learn from him.
A key aspect of Trump’s political rise was that people saw him as authentic, for better or worse. His brashness was seen by some as rude or off-putting, but others found it refreshing.
Scaramucci also said on Newsom’s podcast he hears kernels of truth in Trump’s rhetoric, even though he often finds him dishonest. Democrats who downplayed the issues at the border or economic struggles of the middle class made a mistake, even if they dislike Trump’s tactics.
Another political liability for Democrats is what’s known as “woke-ism,” in Scaramucci’s mind. He told BI after Harris lost last fall that “the average person in America does not like the hard-left culture that’s being imposed upon them,” and Trump took advantage of that perceived flaw.
“Trump is winning the culture war,” Scaramucci recently told BI. “He is the Napoleon of the culture war. He’s the best field general out there, in terms of understanding the culture. He has literally sent the Democrats into a splintered disarray where they’re fighting with each other.”
For example, Scaramucci noted that some on the left are angry with Newsom for consistently appearing on Fox News and, more recently, using his podcast to give a platform to controversial figures like far-right political strategist Steve Bannon and conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
This response is moralistic, in Scaramucci’s view. He thinks Democrats should speak more to moderates and disgruntled Republicans to enlist everyone they can in the fight against Trump.
“I think the only way that Democrats are going to win is if they can rebut the culture war,” Scaramucci said. “And therefore, they’ve got to demonstrate they can get in the center.”
Lastly, Democrats need better messaging, Scaramucci said. Marketing their accomplishments is one of their biggest weaknesses, and that vacuum gave room for Trump to push his trade policy.
“Globalism has actually worked,” Scaramucci said. “Is it with flaws? Sure. Did we leave China unchecked for too long? Yes, we did. Did we lose too many factories? Yes, we did. But globalism has primarily worked. We’re an unbelievably rich and unbelievably prosperous nation as a percentage of overall world output versus our population.”
When asked if there was anyone he thought would step up among Democrats, Scaramucci had a simple answer that may startle the left: “I don’t. They’re in complete disarray.”
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