As Anthony Albanese prepares to head off to finally have a sit down meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the US President’s former (and famously brief) communications boss has some advice.
“Be very careful,” says Anthony Scaramucci. “He (Albanese) should certainly pick up the phone and call (Canadian) Prime Minister Carney, because Carney deals with him better than any other Western leader.”
Carney has cracked the code with the US President by basically ignoring Trump, or if he has to see him to make sure he has a hand in the agenda.
Scaramucci is precise with his words. “Remember, the President is an unserious reality television star, and he’s also a reality television producer. If you’re not careful, you’re going to get set up in there.”
Here he’s talking about meetings in the White House that have quickly gone off the rails, all in front of the cameras. There’s the memorable clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and plenty of excruciating moments with South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa. Many other leaders have come off second best.
“I would just say Prime Minister, make sure that you’re co-producing your appearance. You need to know what the script is. You need to know what the ambush is going to be. And if you go to (White House chief of staff) Suzie Wiles and you get guarantees from her, like Mark Carney has gotten, then it’ll go way better.
“Get in. Produce it well. Be respectful. Get out. That’s my recommendation.”
The New York hedge fund boss Scaramucci exploded on the word stage back in 2017 when Donald Trump named the tough-talking asset manager a communications director during Trump’s first term. ‘The Mooch’ gave as good as he got and the two quickly clashed. Scaramucci was spectacularly sacked after just 10 days in the post.
That moment also brutally ended a friendship between the two that stretched back decades. In the 1990s, Scaramucci was the working-class kid from Long Island trying to make it as a banker with Goldman Sachs. He was one of the few on Wall Street who took Trump seriously.
Following the White House implosion, Scaramucci retreated back to SkyBridge, the hedge fund he founded in 2005.
The acrimony is still real – he has become a high-profile critic of Trump. The lifelong Republican even endorsed former vice president Kamala Harris in her bid for the White House.
Beyond Wall Street, The Mooch is better known for his cutting takes on US politics in the popular podcast The Rest is Politics: US, which he hosts with BBC’s long-term North American correspondent Katty Kay.
The Mooch is set to come to Australia next month, where he will be one of the keynote speakers at the Sohn Hearts & Minds investment conference at the Sydney Opera House, where the proceeds will be directed towards medical research, A decade of Sohn conferences has so far raised more than $80m.
The Mooch is speaking to The Australian via a video link from the back of a limousine, making a 20-mile trip from his home in Long Island to Midtown. He’s dressed up, wearing a sharp black dinner suit with trademark designer sunglasses. He’s headed to a charity food bank gala at Guastavino’s for the evening that mixes arts with giving (Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli is set to give a performance).
Back seat interviews are becoming a habit. When The Australian caught up with The Mooch earlier this year, he was in an Uber. At the time, he was making an anxious dash from his office downtown to the notoriously impossible to get into Italian restaurant Rao’s in East Harlem (a seat had suddenly become available, and Scaramucci had to drop everything to get there).
“There’s probably seven or eight tables in Rao’s,” he says. “They’re controlled by families that have had the tables forever. Even if you’re Warren Buffett, you’ve got to sit at somebody’s table. They won’t take a reservation!”
The small target approach Australia has played until now has been a big advantage on the world stage, Scaramucci says. Although Australian steel shipments have been hit, Australia has the lowest tariffs of among any of the US’s key trading partners and even beef tariffs were relatively modest.
Still, the very real risk of a meeting is once you are on Trump’s radar, “he will figure out a way to hurt you”. Here he’s talking about hefty tariffs being slapped on the pharmaceutical industry, which is threatening to cripple the Irish economy. That followed an Oval Office blast given to the Irish Prime Minister, Micheal Martin. Then came Trump’s stinging criticism of London and the UK at the United Nations. This was days after the President was hosted by the Royal Family for a state dinner.
“I would stay out of the guy’s airspace,” Scaramucci quips.
It’s been a profound week for the US President on the global stage for securing what was long thought to be impossible: a peace deal between Israel and Hamas over Gaza. That has come with a commitment from Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages after two years. This will set the stage for the Albanese meeting, scheduled for October 20.
Scaramucci says back home though, the US economy is feeling the pinch from tariffs, and government shutdowns now underway are adding to the grind. The arm wrestle between state governors over deploying the US National Guard is adding to tensions. However, sky-high tariffs are now threatening to tip the economy into recession. Massive spending on building out artificial intelligence by tech companies is widely seen as the thing keeping the economy growing.
“Prices are up, demand is down,” Scaramucci says. “The average American corporation has what I call tariff fatigue. They were willing to absorb one or two quarters of tariffs. They can’t absorb any more of that anymore.
“They’re not hiring the incremental employees. They’re not putting capital into their plants and equipment – it’s causing a slowdown.”
All this puts the Federal Reserve in a tough position. Inflation hasn’t fully been tamed, and tariffs are adding to rising prices. This risks setting off an inflation spiral or a dollar crisis if rates are cut too quickly.
“There’s no wonder why things like gold up is up 50 per cent this year. Bitcoin up 35-40 per cent this year. People are looking for hedges and store of value decisions as the US looks to massively monetise its debt and weaken its own economic position.”
Scaramucci acknowledges there’s a disconnect with Wall Street, with shares pushing fresh all-time highs. As well as tech frenzy, there is a wide expectation that the Fed is going to keep cutting the cash rate.
Minutes released this week by the US central bank of its September meeting showed there was support for more rate cuts. This was over concerns that the outlook for unemployment had worsened. The next Fed meeting is later this month.
Scaramucci isn’t calling for a crash, but reckons the chance of 15 per cent to 20 per cent market correction is “believable” based on what the economic data is saying.
“If the Fed says, ‘Hey, I can’t really cut rates right now, I’m sorry, we’ve made one rate cut, but now inflation is really blowing out because of the tariffs’, you’ll see a correction in that market.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that when the party is over and as they’re taking the punch bowl away, that’s the height of your fury.”
He believes the hundreds of billions being spent on AI is firing up bubble conditions on Wall Street, making the market even more vulnerable to shocks.
“Unfortunately, one of these things about the allocation of capital is that it collaborates with greed. And there are necessary and unnecessary evils that are associated with it.”
By this, he means any stockmarket shocks will be the trade-off for the very real long-term productivity benefits flowing to the US economy from today’s massive technology spend. This is what makes him long-term positive.
“Could there be an AI bubble that bursts? Sure. Will there be winners and losers in that? Yes, but remember the 2000 crash? We didn’t have companies like Facebook or Google even public by then, but all that capital flowed into the internet.
“To me, I think to be an investor, you have to be long term. And don’t let the cyclical activity spook you out of the market.”
In business, where Trump had an equally spectacular falling out with multi-billionaire Elon Musk this year, Scaramucci says the US President is keeping several people close.
This includes Blackstone chairman Steven Schwartzman and billionaire New York real estate developer Richard LeFrak. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is increasingly moving into Trump’s orbit. Inside Trump’s cabinet, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wields the power. Scaramucci believes trade secretary Howard Lutnick is increasingly on the outer.
The political test for Trump will be in next year’s midterm elections. However, Scaramucci says his main opposition, the Democrats, are completely at sea.
“They don’t know how to respond to Trump. They don’t know how to keep their narrative or their coalition together.”
And while Trump has tight control of the Republican Party, this is where the President’s biggest threat comes – from those closest to him. Names like Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, or even Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“The call to end Trump’s political career will come from inside the White House. Those are highly ambitious people.”
Anthony Scaramucci will be headlining 2025 Sohn Hearts & Minds conference at the Sydney Opera House on November 14
This article was originally posted by The Australian here.
Licensed by Copyright Agency. You must not copy this work without permission.
