20. The Secret Behind Trump's Silence
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Hello and welcome to the Restless Politics U.S. with me, Anthony Scaramucci. And me, Katty Kay. Katty, how are you? Not a lot going on, right? Another crazy week of American politics. I'm back in D.C., which is very nice. Good to be back home. And watching this complete 180 that has happened. Can you believe, Anthony, it is only...

Four weeks since Donald Trump was shot in Pennsylvania and how much has happened. And we, I remember you and I both sending us, sending each other that photograph saying, okay, that's it. The race is over. It's Donald Trump's to win. He's going to win this race. He's got the iconic photograph of,

And then just watching the rollout of the Democratic ticket this week and that incredibly raucous rally that Kamala Harris held with Tim Walz in Pennsylvania. Yeah. And you think the winds of politics have shifted. It's interesting. And this is the beauty of politics. You get so much wrong, get a few things right here and there. But I'm going to say something that the Trumpers are not going to like, but it's probably true.

I think the assassination attempt hurt him. You say, well, what do you mean by that? I think it took him off his game. I think a bullet whizzing that close to his ear and God forbid, thank God he wasn't hurt. He was hurt, but not severely hurt. I think it's taken him aback. I think he's off his game and I know him a long time. He's making some mistakes. We'll address that in the second half of the show. Since I have the show menu this week, let me just tell everybody what we're going to be talking about, okay?

So we're going to kick off with the news that Kamala Harris has announced Tim Walz as a running mate. Okay, we're talking about some of that, why she went in that direction versus Shapiro. And obviously that's Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. And then we'll talk a little bit about why the Republicans think this is their lucky day.

Katty K. I don't know if it is, but they think it is. Then in the second half, Katty, we're going to answer some of our viewers and listeners' questions. So we're very excited to do that. We'll talk about how much impact celebrity endorsements have on elections and why RFK Jr. has been in the news again this week for another animal-related story. So we're going from worms to bears, Katty, and I'm going to let you tell that because you're a great narrator. Katty K.

Okay. So what do you think of this man? This man who's also born in 1964. Okay. And so there's a lot of people that are born in 1964. Since Katty Kay doesn't give up her age, you can Wikipedia her. But let me tell you, I was born in 1964. I was born the week, actually, a little trivia. I was born the week that Martin Luther King Jr. was named Time Magazine Man of the Year. And so if you got the Time Magazine from the week I was born, you're

MLK Jr. was on the cover. I share the same birthday as King Charles. So mine is a lot less impressive than Martin Luther King Jr. Our current King Charles, right? Our current King Charles. Yeah, not the one who lost his head. No, the current King Charles. It's interesting that you bring up his age because obviously you look at this ticket and he is born in the same year as Kamala Harris.

Tim Walsh looks about 10 years older than Kamala Harris. He looks like the kind of cuddly uncle that we all sort of wish we had. If you ever say that about me, okay, I don't know what cars you have in your driveway, but we crash your cars, okay? You can smash my Fiat anytime, which I know you have such disdain for my Fiat that you'd be very happy to smash it. My God. I mean, he looks 10 years older. Oh my God. Keep going. He looks so much older and yet they're born six months apart.

But he brings to the ticket, and I think this is why she chose him, over kind of policy issues, because let's face it, all Democrats sort of have the same policies. He brings to the ticket a sort of folksy, relatable,

every guy demeanor. They kept stressing at the rally that the two held together in Philadelphia, where he was being introduced, that he was a coach, that he had been in the army reserves, that he'd grown up on a small town. And I think the effort is to the extent that a vice presidential pick can do this ever,

to expand the appeal of this ticket to rural white men who might be skeptical about Democrats and skeptical about Kamala Harris in particular. Now, I don't know if they can do that, but I do think his sort of happiness, I mean, he seemed happy, right, to be out there on the stage at that huge, big, raucous rally in Philadelphia. It was a kind of joyous occasion. He was cracking jokes and

He was loving the crowd. It was the first time, by the way, and you will appreciate this, Anthony, that he had read autocue in a big setting like that. And autocue is not an easy thing to master. And he came out on stage and seemed to be very comfortable and happy to be there. So I think that's what he brings to the ticket. And clearly the reporting is that he was happy to play second fiddle to Kamala Harris in a way perhaps that Josh Shapiro wasn't. The governor of Pennsylvania who has

big political ambitions of his own. And in the end, that is what Kamala Harris wanted. And I understand that particularly being a woman running for president, you need to have a vice presidential pick who is okay being your number two. And that when you give them an instruction, they're happy to follow it and not have somebody who kind of is trying to upstage you or outshine you. And I think that's why he brought her. She brought him on in the end. A couple of questions. Is Governor Walz, is he Joe Biden?

to Barack Obama, where he's going to appeal to these Rust Belt states. He's a good number two. He's knowledgeable, going to be helpful in terms of running the executive branch. Or is he Tim Kaine to Hillary Clinton? Great question. Where Senator Kaine, I like him, good guy, but he came across too milquetoast on the stump

and he didn't electrify people. Now I have my answer, but I'd like to hear yours. So go ahead. Tim Kaine or Joe Biden, who's he more like? It's such a great question. After seeing his performance now in three rallies, because since he was announced in Pennsylvania, they have been to Wisconsin and Michigan and done events together. I've watched all three of those rallies this week, and I'm going to go with Joe Biden. He has a lot more energy on the stump

than Tim Kaine. He has a lot more charisma than Tim Kaine. I like Tim Kaine. He's a very decent senator, but he didn't bring much in terms of energy and charisma to the ticket. And I think that Tim Walz is high energy out there on the stump. Okay. So I know we typically do trivia at the end of the show and you called me last week, a producer's nightmare. And I talked to my therapist about it. I think I'm going to be okay. I might, might not be, but I think I'm going to be okay. So I have trivia. I have trivia. Okay.

If I say the three words, college game day, you think of what? What is college game day, Katty K? I think of the day you have the big football match at college. Right. But there's a television show called College Game Day. Oh, that I did not know. Okay. But this is an important part of the Waltz story. Yeah.

He can show up on college game day. And so for UK listeners, people around the world, imagine a politician showing up for European football, British football, and jumping on the show with the color commentators and analyzing and grading players and analyzing teams and coaches and going through the stats and

the way the analysts on the platform can do this. And so he is a high school football coach. And I can tell you something about the country I'm raised in, the 60 years of my observation in this country, everybody loves their high school football coach. So I think he's not even Joe Biden or Tim Kaine. He is Tim Waltz. He is a different beast. And I think she picked the right guy.

Not because I don't like Josh Shapiro. I love Josh Shapiro. When I got fired from the White House, there was a delegation of Philadelphians that came to my restaurant, the Hunt and Fish Club, and we had dinner together. And even though Josh is a Democrat, he came up.

We had dinner together. It was like 10 of us. And I think the world of Josh Shapiro, but he could bigfoot Vice President Harris. Yeah. And he could bigfoot her because of the cadence of his voice. Some people think he talks like Barack Obama. He could bigfoot her because he does have the ambition to be number one. But Tim Waltz is a teacher. Tim Waltz is a guy that likes mentoring people and staying in the back seat.

seat of the conversation, but he can also go on college game day on ESPN caddy. Okay. And I'm telling you, this guy is going to end up being a big beast. And if we're going to compare him to JD Vance, he said one of the best lines of the campaign thus far, can't wait to debate JD Vance.

if he's only willing to get up off the couch. Now, I'm just going to leave that there because there are political aficionados that listen to this. Yes. And I don't even know if it's appropriate to talk about what I mean by getting up off the couch. We do not want to spread misinformation because there is a suspicion that that may not be. No, no. But listen, just read Hillbilly Elegy. You know what I mean. You want to get off the couch and perform. Listen, I think it was a fantastic line. And that guy...

may be better than Biden for her and may be better than, obviously better than Tim Kaine as a candidate, but may even be better than Biden. I watched the last rally that they did together in Michigan, the second rally they did on Wednesday. We're taping this on Thursday, so there may be more rallies since then. And I wondered for a second, he was so good. There was a moment where a woman in the crowd, it was hot,

a woman in the crowd feted, and he just intuitively took a moment out of his speech

speech to say, hold on a second, can we help this woman? She's fainted. Can we get her? She needs water. And he waited. I mean, it was almost slightly awkward. He held up the whole thing for a good couple of minutes to make sure this woman was okay. But actually what it showed was A, the humanity of the guy, right? He looks out for the woman. It was a kind of Taylor Swift, Adele concert moment where I've seen Adele do the same thing in concerts where you make sure the person has water. But it also showed a sort of

a confidence that he has to control the setting like that, to say, I know that this is meant to be the speech part of this and there's certain things I need to get to and I have my bullet points that I meant to say, and it's probably all up there on the prompter in front of him, but I'm actually going to pause it and I'm going to control this moment and I'm going to wait until that woman has got her water and seems to be okay. And it was a moment, of course, that went viral from the speech. I just had a

moment of thinking, is there a risk that he upstages Kamala Harris? He is so good on the stump and so folksy and so relatable. I just wondered about that. Again, great, great question. So my knee-jerk reaction, my blink reaction is no. He doesn't have upstaging in his persona. If you just look at his look,

Okay. Now, you just said that he was 10 years older than he looks. Okay. And as I said earlier, if you ever say that to me, we're going to be crashing cars left and right here. Okay. I mean, the airbags will be going off. This is going to be expensive for Goldhanger at some point. Oh, my God. I mean, you call a guy 10 years older. But anyway, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. He doesn't have that aura. Yes. Is he better? Yes. He doesn't have the look.

And you know exactly what I'm talking about. He looks like your dad. He looks like your uncle. You know, he's apple pie, Chevrolet, hot dogs, America. He doesn't have the look to upstage or my opinion. But I got to go to Trump for a second. President Trump said at the NABJ, the National Association of Black Journalists, he was interviewed there. It was a congregation of African-American journalists. We talked about last week, the Chicago conference. We talked about it last week.

But he said something interesting. They asked him about his erstwhile vice president who has been failing all over America. We'll get to him in a second.

And he said, what do you think? And you're going to stay with him. You like him, blah, blah. He didn't give him a vote of confidence. He just said, you know, vice presidents don't matter is what he said. Remember that? And now this week he's saying that Tim Walz is going to bring the United States into communism. So, this is Trump again saying two conflicting things simultaneously.

And nobody, there's no ref out there blowing the whistle, putting up a yellow card saying, dude, how do you get away with saying two different things always at the same time? I don't get it. That is the history of Donald Trump. So we've spoken a bit about what we both like about Tim Walsh and what he brings to the ticket. And there's this kind of energy and joy and his kind of happy-go-lucky side.

and the everyman stuff. I like the fact that he makes the distinction between criticizing the Republican ticket and being very careful not to criticize the Republicans who vote for Donald Trump. There's a very good interview, by the way, if you want to listen to something that he recorded before he was chosen as the vice presidential nominee, and it's with Ezra Klein on Ezra Klein's podcast. Ezra did a great interview with Tim Waltz, and I guess they recorded it about him.

10 days ago, but he really is careful. He says, I want to be very careful. Like I said, those folks at those rallies, you insult them at great peril. Your neighbor is flying the flag. You insult them at great peril because they're my relatives. They truly are. And I know them. And I think that is a very, it's a smart approach. It's gets away from what Hillary Clinton did in 2016, but

when she called supporters of Donald Trump a basket of deplorables. And I think he will finesse that we're going to attack the top of the ticket as weird, the favorite word of the moment amongst Democrats, but we're going to make sure that we don't attack the people at the bottom of the ticket, the people who are actually electing and voting for Donald Trump. So I think those are the upsides. Donald Trump went on Fox & Friends on Wednesday and said he was really excited about Tim Walz.

because he's super liberal. It shows just how liberal this ticket is. And he's giddy with excitement because they are going to criticize him as being super liberal. So talk about some of the liabilities of Tim Walz and how you think, having worked with Donald Trump in 2016, how you think the Trump campaign is going to go after him. Well, they're going to hit him in a number of different levels. And I believe, and I'd be interested in your take on

I believe that the Republicans were pushing out a lot of opposition research information against Josh Shapiro over the last 10 days. I believe that they were very worried about Josh Shapiro. Some people have told me that President Obama wanted Josh Shapiro when he was counseling Vice President Harris. I think the message was, hey,

You're progressive enough. You're an African-American woman. You have left-leaning voting record. You won't have a commotion at the convention that you think, and you should go with Josh Shapiro for the win.

because he will scare the daylights out of the Republicans due to his stances on things like Israel. Remember, he's for fracking. This is a very important situation, very important policy in Pennsylvania. And so I think that was a big push for her. She decided not to go in that direction. And he has a lot of liberal things that he's doing, the legalizations of marijuana, the abortion law. Now there's

disinformation about that abortion law out there on Twitter, but if you look up the abortion law, it's fairly unrestricted. If you are a Christian conservative, even if you are a liberal, if you're a Democrat, but you're also Roman Catholic, meaning you practice your religion and you abide by what the Pope says about abortion, that could be concerning to you. He's not really experienced in foreign policy.

He has a mixed bag approach to Israel. If you listen to him, sometimes he's saying things that pro-Israeli people like, and sometimes he isn't. So there's a lot to go after for Republicans. The thing that they're focused on right now, which I think is not going to work, is what's called stolen valor. And so just quickly for people outside the United States, if someone served in the army, maybe they didn't go into the battleground of Afghanistan or Iraq, but they sort of make claims that they did.

They're trying to suggest that he did that. It's not clear that he did that, by the way, by the tapes and records. It's not clear by any of the interviews that he did that. Moreover, he left before his battalion was going to be deployed. So two months before his battalion was deployed to Iraq,

After 24 years in the National Guard, he pulled out. People are going to call him a coward for that. Of course, that's laughable, but I'm just saying that's up against Sergeant Bonespurs who didn't go to the Vietnam War, he was Bonespurs. So this is the hypocrisy of politics.

But I'm just saying they're trying out the stolen valor right now. I just want to point out to people, the Iraq war is not popular in the United States. I'm sure it's not popular in the UK. That era in the United States polls at like 30%. So I don't think it's going to work. Yeah. I don't think bringing the Iraq war up helps anybody at this point. And

He did actually announce his retirement two months before the order came through for his unit to be deployed to Iraq, and he had served 24 years. So I think that's going to be tricky for them. I think the one area that they might have more traction on is Tim Walz's handling of what happened in Minneapolis-St. Paul after George Floyd was murdered back in 2020. Absolutely.

and all of the riots that we saw in Minneapolis, the looting, the burning of cars, the burning of shops. Tim Walz was governor, and he took a few days to call out the National Guard. And I think that is something they can replay those images of Minneapolis burning and say, is this the guy you want running the country? Look at the chaos that ensued. Now,

I think that is a problem and it's very visual, so it makes for good television ads and they're already running ads against him on this. The downside for them on this is that there has now been a recording that ABC News got hold of and they've aired this recording of

Donald Trump calling Tim Walz an excellent governor and praising his handling of that period of Minnesota's history. So that may mitigate some of that. That just may make it harder for them to go there as strongly as they want to. But I think you're right. There are liberal policies, things like universal school meals. He gave the right for every child in Minnesota to have a free breakfast or lunch, not dependent on income.

All of my kids went to DC public schools, which in America, of course, are state schools. And if you had your own lunch, you brought your own lunch. If you paid for your ticket, it was one color. If you got a free lunch, it was another color. And it was kind of stigmatizing. I mean, everybody in my kids' classes knew the kids who were on free lunch. They were basically the poor kids.

And I think the fact that he did that as a teacher and an educator did a lot to destigmatize poverty in schools. But it's been kind of criticized as being an expensive program by some Republicans. So I think there is stuff on his record that they can kind of paint him and by extension Kamala Harris as uber liberal. I just wonder whether this is going to be an election in the last couple of weeks. If people who decide this election are...

are, as we've said before, 150,000 voters in five states, and they tend to be people that are called low information voters. They make up their minds at the end. They're not absorbing politics like you and me are. Are they actually going to dig into policies like this and look at what happened on the abortion issue in Minnesota or what happened on school meals or what he said on Israel? Or are they going to go on a vibe? Are they going to go on the kind of mood of the campaign? And if he can hold up this kind of, you know, cheerful Reagan-esque

morning in America type vibe, I think he does well. It's a brilliant assessment of where we are. I think the interesting historical point that I would like to make is that 2020 was a seminal year for

for Minnesota, but it became a seminal year for 2024 presidential politics. And let me explain quickly. You're so right. Joe Biden was close to picking Senator Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota. She's a brilliant person. I don't know if you've met with Amy. I've had the opportunity to spend some time with her at a dinner. Absolutely brilliant person. She's very funny. And could be a great executive, political executive. And he was close to picking her. She's a senator from Minnesota.

The George Floyd murder took place, the unfortunate death. The riots ensued, and then it became almost impossible to pick her because she was once a prosecutor in Minnesota, and he didn't want to go into that hornet's nest. So he shifted gears and went with Kamala Harris.

And it's interesting that, you know, in the beginning, then Senator Harris with Vice President Biden, there was a rub there because of the way she attacked him during the debates and insinuated he might have some racist tones to his personality. Of course, she walked that back and he's a politician and let it go. But if you didn't have the George, this is a butterfly effect, Katty. You didn't have the George Floyd riots. You may have had Amy Klobuchar riots.

If you have Amy Klobuchar, Governor Tim Walz is nowhere on the scene. Okay. So you end up picking Kamala Harris and now all roads lead back to Minnesota. And so I just want people to, I just want to point out to people that George Floyd riots, the murder and the ensuing riots created this ticket.

that the Democrats have right now. And again, I'm not saying that's good or bad, but I'm just trying to point out to people in politics, like everything else in life, there's a butterfly effect. You miss the train, you miss the interview, you take a different job, your life goes in a totally different direction. And we're here now. I love that analysis of the butterfly effect. But that's where we are. And that's what happened. And the thing I would say, because I do get calls now from

Democrats and Republicans. Thank God they're listening to the podcast and they want to give me cannon fodder for the podcast. But one thing that was true, this is a big donor, big Democratic donor. I had no idea who Tim Walz was until three weeks ago. Me too. So he's not a well-known guy. You know who did know him? Tell me.

Donald Trump knew him because he appointed him as chairman of the Council of Governors, which is another reason it's going to be a little hard for him to go after him. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about Trump in a second, but this funny part about the whole thing, he's not a well-known guy, but when he shows up on stage, America knows him. And you know exactly what I'm talking about. The visage of him, a little bit of the extra chin-ishness of him. Do you like that? I'm making up words. Yeah.

By the way, if you ever say I have a double chin too, I'll tell you. God, there's like a whole load of taboos on this subject. I'm writing a list. I'll be at the plastic surgeon faster than you can say plastic surgeon. Let me tell you something. This guy has had the extra beer and he's had the extra bratwurst at the Minnesota Fair. God bless him for it. Well, he hasn't had the extra beer because he hasn't drunk a beer since 1995 when he was done for a DUI. So he doesn't actually drink. But-

But actually talking of the fair, check out his social media because he posts these really cute, this is what I first learned about him, where I first started looking at him, folksy little videos of him teaching people how to change a spark club or with his daughter, Hope, who is the big, I think is the big political breakout star of 2024, by the way. And he goes to the fair with her and they go on rides together. And you're exactly right. It's that kind of the big chin, the guy at the

the county fair, going on this kind of hair-raising ride with his teenage daughter. And she kind of pokes fun at him. It's fun. Do you think Ezra Klein on his podcast said, hey, Governor Waltz, you got a big chin? Probably didn't say that. I mean, we're not going to probably get him on our podcast. Do you want to know one other fun fact about Tim Waltz? No, please. He doesn't own a single stock.

He needs to talk to Anthony Scaramucci. So that came up the other night on television. Somebody asked me about that, obviously, because I own a lot of stocks. And I said, he's a teacher. Yeah. He is a teacher. Most teachers are going paycheck to paycheck. I have people in my family that are teachers, that are in education. And certainly, he should own a few stocks. But it's totally understandable to me, while he is relying...

on the teacher sort of income, the pension. And listen, it's normal in the UK for these investments to have to go into blind trust. But the thing about this governor, he doesn't even have a blind trust because he has no assets. He doesn't even have a house. There's something likable about that. And it's something that's America. And Cady, for our UK international listeners, we live in America. That's you and me. We're on the East Coast.

And then there's America. Okay. Now what's America? It is, you know what I'm talking about, right? It is the SUVs. It's the tattoos. It's NASCAR. It's country music. It's a boat on the lake. It's, hey, this is America.

Okay. This is, yeah, we're insulated here. We're about 500 miles in from each of these coasts. This is our country. We pioneered it. Our ancestors plowed it, cut down the trees and made it, and it's ours. Okay. And leave us alone. And if you're hoity-toity and you act a little too uppity, we're going to mow you down. And I think this is a problem that J.D. Vance is going to have because he's trying to say that he's America.

and Tim Waltz is going after him. Yeah, you're America with your Silicon Valley VC nonsense and your Yale nonsense, right? You see? Yeah. See, the reason why I do well in America is these guys look at me and say, at least this son of a bitch owns his stuff, okay? He owns all of this stupidity about himself. But J.D. Vance is not willing to do that. No, and actually, I've spoken to people from Appalachia, my son's girlfriend who comes from Ohio, a small town in Ohio, and she actually said, listen, we all know about J.D. Vance there.

And we ask ourselves, what did he give back to us? He wrote a bestselling book about us that kind of trashed us and blamed us for our problems. And what did he bring back to us? So he doesn't actually go down terribly well in parts of Appalachia as well. I thought the other line that he had at the Philadelphia rally that was really good, Tim Waltz, was when he, to your point about small town America, and he said, there's a rule of thumb in small town America and it's mind your own business. And it's a

quintessential libertarian piece of advice. It's how the Republican Party has actually felt about politics for a very long time. You get the government out of my life. You do not ask what happens in my bedroom. You do not tell me how to conduct my healthcare. It felt that that was the cut to your pioneer point. I thought that was also a very successful line that he had. Let me ask you this question, if you don't mind. Okay. I want to play strategist again. We're in a strategy session.

You're on the Trump campaign. Go. How are you going to hit these guys? I think you go after the liberal. I mean, first of all, you've got to come up with one line of attack that sticks rather than trying to throw spaghetti at the wall, which is what they've been doing. So you come up with something and I think it has to be painting them as outside the mainstream of America. You can't

keep talking about immigration and the wall and the number of people who've come across the border, even if the numbers don't necessarily hold up because there are fewer people coming across now. You replay those scenes from December and January of people flooding across the border.

You talk about the record on the economy. You keep trying to tie inflation to Biden-Harris, mentioning Harris as part of that administration. You talk about the sanctuary cities. You talk about trans rights and how Minnesota has become a sanctuary state for kids who are seeking gender affirming care. So I think you go through the checklist of liberal policies and you try to paint them as out of step with where America is. The

I mean, the problem for Trump is that he's not, I mean, look, I did a map. Here we go. Here you go on YouTube. This is the map of where they've been this week. I don't know if you can even see this. I can see the map. You get Arizona the size of Mexico. Can you not criticize my map? Go ahead. We're saving money here. We haven't got a lot of funds for graphics. So this is me and my Sharpie. Anyway, so they flew from Pennsylvania, Texas.

up to Wisconsin, over to Michigan, and this is what they're going to do. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, they're going to keep doing that loop. And they met J.D. Vance, their planes literally crushed on the tarmac in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday because they were both in the same place. Where was Donald Trump?

sunshine state. He's there on his lounger in Mar-a-Lago. He's not even out campaigning. And if he is going to campaign, he's campaigning on Friday in Montana, a state he won by 15 points. First of all, you asked me what he should be doing. He needs to get out there. This should be Donald Trump, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, this loop that they're going to be doing. What's he doing in Montana? And they're

and find a line of attack that sticks. - Okay, first of all, I love the map. - Thank you. - I'm just letting you know that I'm gonna be in YouTube later today with an anonymous comment, "Please more maps from Katty Kay." - Yeah. - But here, okay, so I wanna respond, okay? So the first thing I'll say is I think you're 100% correct on strategy. It's crime, socialism, border, economy. Crime, socialism, border, economy. These are the wrong people for America. That should be the Trump playbook.

But why is Trump not out there? Okay, so I want to just give you some insight from my life in Trump world.

He is not out there because he's pissed. Okay. He picked Vance. He knows Vance was a terrible, terrible pick. And he's lighting people up inside his campaign right now about picking Vance. His ego couldn't allow him to stomach somebody like Nikki Haley, which probably could have put him well ahead. They're tied right now. But with a Nikki Haley on the ticket, it would have been easier for him. So he's super pissed.

Number two, the Project 2025, which you and I have talked about, that Trump is trying to disavow, he's got 80 or 90 of his people over there and they're pissed at him for jettisoning all of them. And so he has talked to people about firing Chris and Susie.

They're two very extremely talented people. Boy, if he does that, I think that would be a disaster. I like Chris LaCivita. Suzy, I don't know as well, but I will tell you something about the two of them. They've gotten Trump on message and they've gotten Trump very disciplined. If he does his knee-jerk impetuous reaction and blows them out like he did Corey Lewandowski, it's going to be bad. Remember, he likes doing this. In August, he blew everybody out.

Okay, this is August of 2016. He brought in Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway for the win. So he's talking about this internally. This is why he's not on the campaign stuff, okay? He's talking to the old crew, Caddy K. Now, he's not talking to me, okay? My cell phone number hasn't changed, but I haven't talked to him in a long time. But he is talking to my pals. He's saying, okay, where's the old band? Can we get the old band back together? Blah, blah, blah. That's why he's not out there.

Okay. But the weird thing about all of this, there's no field operation and there's no rapid response. But he could be doing that. They have cell phone reception in Wisconsin. They have cell phone reception in Michigan. There's nothing to stop him making these calls from Pennsylvania. That's not him. That's not him. He sits at that desk with the phone, blah, blah, blah. He's calling a couple of people to reinforce his insecurities and he's calling some people for advice. He

He's thinking about making a switch. And this is the reason why he's been on a ground stop related to the campaign. So there was a, there's an editorial out on Thursday as we're taping this in the wall street journal, not a bastion of kind of Marxist thinking, but their editorial is titled will Donald Trump blow another election? And it's a brutal read. It suggests that he was the wrong candidate and,

It goes on to say that he should not have attacked the governor of the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, nor his wife, which he did last week. It talks about Kamala Harris now raising more money, having the momentum behind her. And it ends by saying his rally speeches are a bundle of personal grievances and impulsive floundering. I mean,

This editorial is brutal for Trump. Was it written by a Brit? Because these are like Brit words. Was it written by a Brit? No. The floundering. I love the floundering. I'm not sure. What is impulsive floundering? Like Americans would say, this guy sucks on the campaign. You guys say shit like floundering. It's like impulsive floundering. Anyway, it's not great. And when you've got the Wall Street Journal saying, this guy is at risk of losing the election.

How much does that filter down to Trump and affect his decisions of the kind that you're talking about? Would he be reading that and thinking, okay, I don't like that? It's 100%. People say he doesn't read. That's BS. He starts with the New York Post. He gets to the journal. He reads the op-ed sections of the journal. He is influenced by all of this stuff.

But just on Brian Kemp, because I know Brian well. I'm a donor, fully disclosed. I'm a donor to Brian Kemp. We talk, and I like Brian Kemp. Brian Kemp has a future in the Republican Party. He's an extremely popular governor of Georgia. He's a very effective executive.

But I have said publicly, Brian is making a big mistake here. This guy's attacking you. He's attacking your family. He's challenging your principles as a person. A guy like that, you got to push him back. And Brian's not doing that. He's saying on Twitter, oh, lay off me. I still like you. I'm going to help you get elected and don't pick on my family. I think this is the wrong move because someday Trump is going to be gone and you're going to have to go to the microphone and say, when Trump was bullying you, what were you doing?

Because how are you going to handle Vladimir Putin, Brian Kemp, if you want to be president, if you can't handle Donald Trump? So he should have verbally jujitsu'd him to the ground, but he didn't do that. But Trump did something there that people should really pay attention to. He is hated by the Republicans and he knows this. Elected Republican officials hate him. Again, I'm a big donor. I give money to all these senators. One senator sent me a book called Snakes in Suits.

how to deal with sociopaths at work and said to me, you know, hey, I read this. This helped me with Donald Trump. I thought you may enjoy reading this. I'm halfway through it. It's quite good. But my point is they hate him. Okay. And he knows they hate him. And so this is deterrence.

This is like Lindsey Graham. You think I'm stupid. I know you hate me. Ted Cruz, you call me sniveling coward. I know you're rough now to me, but you hate me. And so here's the message. You publicly get out there. I have a little bit of blood, not on my ear, but somewhere metaphorically, I'm weakened or wounded somewhere and you go after me, I'm going to destroy you on international and national television.

And this is something that Trump does to people. And let me tell you something, Cady, it is so effective because it scares the living daylights out of these cowardly politicians.

Business people that have their own careers and their own money, they don't care. I laugh at it. I'm ready to go with the guy, but not politicians. They don't like it. No, and he goes after their wives too. I mean, Brian Kemp can join the list of Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell. Anthony Scaramucci. He went after my wife, Deirdre. Who is this guy? Joe Scarborough. He went after her wife. I mean, he goes after people's wives. It's interesting. Let me tell you something. Okay. In our country, they still work for us. It's not Putin's country where we're working for him.

They work for us. You're going to come after my wife. It is personal for a guy like me. And we'll be swinging until you're out of political contention. Which, by the way, is exactly what Ted Cruz says he was going to do.

And then he rolled over and joined the Trump train. Okay. Roof, roof. That's cool. You know why I'm barking? Because I'm being a lapdog. I'm being a Republican lapdog. Roof. Hey, guys, stop with the roofs, okay? Tell the truth to the American people. The American people are dying for the truth. Okay, let's take a break. And after that, we're going to answer some of your questions. Travel is all about choosing your own adventure. With your Chase Sapphire Reserve card, sometimes that means a ski trip at a luxury lodge in the Swiss Alps.

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Welcome back to The Rest is Politics with me, Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Welcome back. In this half, we are going to take some of your questions. We did it last week and it was so much fun. And thank you, everybody, for sending them. At Rest Politics US is how you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, anywhere else you like. Send us those questions and we'll get to more of them today. But Anthony, you...

You had something you wanted to kick us off with in this half that you felt encapsulated where we are. I think it is important to say a few things. The Trump campaign cannot be underestimated. You can't underestimate the political beast that is Donald Trump.

And while it looks like it's a little slow right now in disarray, they will come up with a narrative that's quite formidable. But there's something going on in the Harris campaign that I think people need to pay close attention to. And this is the fact that she could Obama-size Donald Trump. And I'll just be brief on this. But, Cady, there's 144 million people in the United States that are registered to vote and consistently don't vote.

So weirdly and cynically, that's the largest voting bloc in the United States. Registered, but they don't vote. And what Barack Obama did in 2008, he went after those people and he enlisted them as Democrats. And so Hillary Clinton, she controlled the establishment Democratic Party. And Barack Obama said, yeah, that's fine, but I'm going to create this whole new market. I'm going to think like an entrepreneur and create this whole new market. And I think it's important to explain to people that the Harris team

is trying to come up with the jigsaw puzzle of how to do that for Kamala Harris. And the question is, is she a political athlete

is capable of doing that. Now, I will see that Barack Obama, and you'll have to tell me who the British footballer is, but Barack Obama is the Michael Jordan of American politics in terms of his political excellence, but she doesn't have to be Michael Jordan. I guess we'd have to say that he's the Gary Lineker of British football. Yeah, there you go. So he's the Gary Lineker. There you go. I think that's what our bosses would want us to say. That's so good. I wish I thought of it. Okay. But my point here is that

Trump knows because his team has polled this every which way to Sunday. Yes, he's got the high floor, but he's got a low ceiling. He's sort of stuck at 47.5%.

If she can draw 5, 10 million of those 144 million people, the race is over. Now, Trump can't do it. And I'm going to explain why. He's got 100% name recognition, fully saturated, and he's been in it for nine years and he hasn't been able to figure it out. And he has this rambling hate speech that he gives every week, the one that you're referencing in that essay in the Wall Street Journal. So the question is,

Can she do it? And I'm going to say three quick things and let's go to the questions. Number one, stay on message Kamala Harris. Number two, don't take debate from the press. You haven't given an interview. Don't give one until you're completely ready. Get used to these big crowds. Get used to being this presidential candidate and this international celebrity.

And then the third thing is be a little bold. Go out there and try to grab people that are generally cynical, generally indifferent that don't vote and say, it's your time. Maybe it's reproductive freedom. Maybe it's the fact that this is breaking new ground in terms of identity politics, which she represents. There's a lot there for her to play with. And she could Obama-size Trump. And trust me, the Trump people are very worried about it.

Let's probably take questions now, but I wanted to bring that up. I'm going to add one quick thing to that, which is look at the polling this week because she's starting. She's for the first time. The Democrats have moved ahead of the Republicans with Harris at the top of the ticket, and they've done that in the space of two weeks. So they're moving fast.

They've amassed a huge amount of money. And now the polling in the swing states is also shifting in the Democrats' direction, which means that she has more of a map to get to that 270 electoral college votes before I think the Democrats really needed to just focus on those three states, the blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. But now you've got Georgia is back in play for them. Arizona is back in play for them.

They were going to do an event in North Carolina this week. There was a storm in North Carolina, so they had to call it up. But you could see how the map was

their route to 270 is following what you're saying because you build the broad coalition and with that eventually comes the electoral college map. Okay, questions. Paul Pastor has written to us, I've read that celebrity endorsements for political candidates don't really count for much, but is it possible that endorsements from highly influential artists like Taylor Swift and Charlie XCX might swing it for Kamala Harris?

What do you reckon, Anthony? I say yes to that one. And thank you, Paul, for writing in. Please write in more. I say yes to that one because she's so influential with young people. I can't speak to Charlie XCX as well as Taylor Swift, but the Taylor Swift movement, these are young women. If Taylor Swift went out there and said, hey,

There's 14 states now where you don't have reproductive freedom. You better pay attention. She may move some of those indifferent voters that I'm describing. So I say yes to that. What do you say? Yeah, I think Taylor Swift is a very big player in American politics. When she puts out on her Instagram account, go and register to vote,

tens of thousands of people register to vote in direct response to what she puts out on social media. This week, there is a photograph going around on X and Instagram that is Taylor Swift at a concert, and behind her is a shadow, and the shadow looks suspiciously like Kamala Harris.

I think it's actually a dancer or even possibly Taylor Swift herself. But the speed with which people picked that up and said, is that actually a subtle endorsement of Kamala Harris by Taylor Swift that there is this shadow that looks suspiciously like Kamala Harris out behind her?

shows that people are waiting to see what Taylor Swift is going to do. I had a conversation with a big Democratic donor yesterday who is very excited about the Kamala Harris ticket, a woman, and she pointed specifically to Taylor Swift and Beyonce as two people who might move the needle in the vice president's direction. By the way, also Simone Biles gave $4 million to the campaign this week for the four medals that she won at the Paris Olympics in gymnastics.

So you're starting to see these celebrities jump on and make it public and make money for the campaign. So it's partly the endorsements, Paul, and the reach that these artists have online, but it's also the money that they bring with them. And that's also very helpful. So this one is very interesting. This comes from Oreo.

Can third party candidates like Jill Stein and RFK Jr. have an impact on the race? They absolutely can have an impact. Ask Hillary Clinton in 2016, who lost Wisconsin and Michigan, partly because Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, was on the ticket and took votes away from Hillary Clinton.

We did an episode about RFK Jr. earlier this year. You might want to go and dig that out, what kind of candidate he was and what kind of impact he could have. When we did that episode, RFK Jr. was polling at about 10%. That makes a real difference. He's now polling at about 2%.

And the reason in part that his poll numbers have plummeted, partly because there was a thing of double haters, voters who didn't like either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, and they were looking for another candidate. And so now they seem to be happy with Kamala Harris, but partly because of a dead bear cub.

The story of the dead bear cub is worth you looking up. RFK Jr., 10 years ago when he was 60, he was not a kid, was up in Maine. He'd been falconeering. He was up in the countryside and he came across a dead bear cub by the side of the road. And he decided, as one does, as you would, Anthony, I'm sure, to pick up this dead bear cub and throw it into his truck. At which point he drives down to New York City and goes out to a very swanky restaurant, a steak restaurant for dinner.

Then he comes out of the steak restaurants and realizes he has to get to the airport. But problem, he's still got a dead bear cub in the back of his truck. So he thinks to himself, brilliant idea. I'll head to Central Park. I'll dispose. I'm not making this up. I'll dispose of the dead bear cub and I will stage it to make it look like the bear got run over by a bicyclist.

So there were lots of news stories at the time about this dead bear cub suddenly emerges in Central Park and it looks like a bicyclist had run it over. But that sounds weird. How can a bicyclist run over a dead bear cub? Anyway, this week, because a New Yorker profile was coming out about RFK Jr. that was going to tell this story, RFK Jr. decided to get ahead of the news, which is what you do in politics.

And he gave a television interview with Roseanne Barr in which he tells this extraordinary story of the dead bear cub, which first there were brain worms and now there are dead bears. I'm not sure what else weird stuff is going to go on during this campaign, but that was some pretty strange shit. First of all, I love the story. I could listen to it all day. I'm going to react by saying three things. Okay. Number one, yes, they do matter.

And the GOP, the Republicans want Jill Stein and RFK in the race. And trust me, Steve Bannon was funding Jill Stein in 16. The Republicans are using their conservative network anonymously to fund RFK and Jill Stein now because they think that that will weaken the Democratic candidate. I should also bring up Ralph Nader quickly in 2000. He calls to Al Gore that election.

So they do matter. And the last point I want to bring up, which you probably know this already, Caddy, my idea of camping is the four seasons. Okay. And I'm talking, I'm not talking being out of the elements. I'm talking being in white sheets, white robes and room service. So one thing I can guarantee you, if somebody says to you that there's a dead bear in the back of my car or it's hanging on the front of my Lamborghini,

It's fake news, Katty K. Okay, it's fake news. Point that out. It's an AI story. You've had a deep fake out there. Yes, 100%. And that's a deep fake voice of me claiming that. By the way, just before we go to the next question, which I like to, he got a photograph of himself. He took a selfie of himself.

Of himself with his finger in the mouth of this dead bear cub. Unbelievable. The guy is seriously strange. Gross. All right. So we have James Sullivan. He's asking about Irish and Italian voters. The various segmentation of voters have not heard much recently about the Irish American or the Italian American vote. Have these communities lost their influence? I'll go first on that.

Definitely not in New York. I can tell you that there's about 13% of New York is Italian American. And so the Italian Americans vote, they're active in politics and definitely not in New York. I think more broadly though, on the national level, they've started to look like everybody else. And maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago, my dad's generation or my grandfather's generation, I would say no.

They had certain special interests that both Irish American and Italian American voters were looking for. But today they start to look like everybody else in my mind. I'm wondering if you disagree with my assessment. I saw a poll on Fox News this morning saying that for the first time, Jewish American voters in New York in your state were polling for Trump over Harris by one point. What has tended to be, do you think the, I mean, I hear what you say when you say they look

More like regular Americans. But do Italian Americans tend to live in cities? And since cities in America tend to trend democratic, does that mean that Italian Americans tend to be more democratic than Republican? Maybe, but not the Italian Americans I'm near. We had a lot of Trump supporters out here on Long Island, and they're waving flags for Trump.

And it's interesting because the Italians of my youth consider themselves minorities. Remember Teddy Roosevelt in 1905, legislation was signed saying that Italians should be treated as non-Caucasian for immigration purposes. And so the Italians, they're desperate, all groups are, myself included, everyone's desperate to assimilate and become American. I think that's one of the

the beauties of America. But yes, I do think that the Cuomos are an example of what you're saying. That would be Governor Mario Cuomo, that's Chris and Andrew's father, and obviously Governor Andrew Cuomo. That was a classic liberal Italian. You know, what's interesting about my life story, Cady, is that the Republicans...

controlled my dad's union. There was a guy named Joe Margiatta out in Nassau County. David Axelrod was the only one that knew that piece of trivia. He said to me when I was on his podcast, he goes, you're a Republican because your dad's union was controlled by Joe Margiatta. I looked at him, I said, 100%, because when I was 18, I registered for the draft.

And I turned to my pops, I said, am I a Republican or a Democrat? He said, what are you, crazy? You're a Republican. And it was a rare thing that a union in the United States could be controlled by Republicans. But listen, I think these people are assimilating. I believe this. I am a very proud Italian American, but I do think that there's been a lot more assimilation

And my kids don't identify as, yeah, I mean, they love their grandma. They love their Nana's pasta on a Sunday. And thank God my mother's still up for making it for them. But they see themselves as American first. My grandfather thought of himself as an Italian American. And my kids think of themselves American. And a long time ago, there were a few family members that lived in Italy. My kids think of themselves as British and American. Three of them were born in this country. One was born in Japan.

And I can see that for those of them that live here, if they marry Americans and have kids who are American, their kids will think of themselves as American. So you can see how it goes. It's two generations. Just don't tip what you want, Katty, because, you know, I don't know. I don't know the dynamic with the kids. You gotta be careful.

Don't let them know what you want them to do. They may do the opposite. Oh, yes. Yeah. I hope they never have any children. My kids must never have any children because, God, then I would have grandchildren and that would be terrible. Okay. The last question is some book recommendations. Jerry Arthurs, can you recommend any recent books to help us understand the social and political trends in U.S. politics in recent years?

And what other books, fiction, nonfiction, do you read for pleasure and would recommend? I'll start off. There's a great book called Evicted by Matthew Desmond, who is a social scientist. And it was actually his PhD thesis. And he goes up to Milwaukee University.

in Wisconsin, and he writes the story of all the people who are involved in the housing industry, really. He talks to people who are landlords. He talks to people who are being evicted. He talks to people who are trying to get into the housing market. And it reads like a Dickens novel. It's a great way to try and understand America and how hard it is once you've fallen off the ladder to get back onto it. Ezra Klein's book, Why We're Polarized, is a very good kind of short analysis of

the history of polarization of the last kind of 10, 20 years in American politics. I love reading fiction. I mostly read fiction in the evening because it helps me go to sleep. And when I'm on holiday, I enjoy reading fiction a lot. And if you want, you know, you can never go wrong with The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald's short, fantastic book.

about America in the first half of the 20th century. So The Great Gatsby is a fascinating book for me because I grew up on East Egg, not in the estate section, but we grew up in the middle class section of that area. And so we had to read that in English composition in high school. So I'll be quick, but these are seminal books for me

about the American experiment. They're all by Jay Winnick, by the way. This is an American trilogy, a brilliant historian. I'm going to read them in the chronological order of American history as opposed to how he wrote them. The Great Upheaval is about George Washington and a great time of crisis in Europe. You had the French Revolution and you had America becoming a country.

April of 1865, the most seminal month. Lenin once said that sometimes in a decade, nothing happens. And then sometimes in a week, a decade happens. But in the month of April of 1865, 100 years happened in that one month. And it's a brilliant book by J. Winick, April 1865.

And then 1944 by Jay Winnick. If you really want to understand what America was 80 years ago and how it became the superpower that it is,

Last book, Hidden Truths. This is by Jill Lepore. She's an American historian. This is not the glossed over version of America. This is the America of racism, segregation, slavery, all the things that we've struggled with in this country to make it a more perfect union. It's a brilliant assessment. And then lastly, if you like fun, anything that Daniel Silva writes, I read, Katty Kaye.

Anything. He's a spy novelist and he's a great friend. And I know you're close to him as well. I love him. Anything he writes, I read. I am a little bit of a bibliophile. And every summer, Daniel Silver gives us a little treat every summer for your summer beach reading. It's your indulgence of a little spy novel. Okay. That's it for this week. Thank you for listening. We will be back next Friday with more on The Rest Is Politics US. I'm Cathy Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. We hope that you'll tune in again next week.