VIDEO: Anthony Scaramucci: “If Donald Trump wins, it will be a problem for the world”

SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER:  Anthony Scaramucci, welcome to 730.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMS. DIRECTOR:  It is great to be here. Thank you. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  Now you were part of the Trump operation. You were fired but then you stayed loyal for two years. What changed?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  Well, listen, I worked for him for a year prior to me serving the White House for 11 days. When I got fired, I didn't want to be a big baby and walk out of there as a whiner or a complaining person because I got fired. 

I'm a lifelong Republican so I attempted to stay loyal to him, but this is not your dad or your grandfather's Republican Party. This is a Trumpist party. 

This has elements of fascism in it, this has elements of liquidating the other two branches of the government and he has a group of acolytes now with him that are hard right. 

He had more mid Republicans, middle ground Republicans and careerist Republicans with him in 2016 but he doesn't have that now. Those people have left him. He's got 40 people that served him in various capacities, in the cabinet, including his vice-president that was on the ballot with him twice, that are denouncing him and explaining the danger of him. 

So he's got this new group of people that are to the hard right and they're very well organised, which makes him more dangerous. 

He's not an ideological person himself but he's now adhered to ideological people.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Let's talk about how much the race has changed since Kamala Harris entered the race. What impact has she had, from your knowledge of him, on Donald Trump? And has he kind of picked up a little bit?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  I think he's been shaken by her, but I think he's a very adaptive guy. He's a human Swiss army knife in terms of his political instincts. He'll find the right tool to strike at her rhetorically. 

He hasn't been able to find that yet because he was fixated on Joe Biden. He was fixated at being the younger of the two candidates in the race. And he's also been imperilled by the demography. 

We've lost 22.2 million Baby Boomers since the 2016 election. At the same time the Generation Zs have risen to the tune of 40 million. So you have got this great demographic recirculation, and so when he calls her stupid, and he says she turned black and all this sort of nonsense, the Baby Boomers were conditioned to deal with that but the Generation Z's, they don't like it all. It is a big turnoff for them.  Even if they like Donald Trump, they may not show up and vote for him.

SARAH FERGUSON:  But you always said he's very smart. 

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  Very smart. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  So when he puts out or likes offensive tweets about Kamala Harris, not just the black thing, but another one about her and Hillary that I won't dignify in all its fullness. He's a smart guy. What's the plan?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  I have to talk about it if you don't mind. It was a very misogynistic tweet about Vice-President Harris and Secretary of State Clinton. People can look it up because it's disgusting to bring it up on the air but that's him. He's going hard at the base. 

So if you analyse their two conventions, they are like, okay, this is a get out and vote exercise. It is going to be a very close election in those seven swing states. So we're going to just feed the base. 

So, Harris did that. If you landed from Mars, her, you know, her convention looked 60 per cent black and probably 80 per cent women and of course, the country doesn't look like that but she's feeding her base. 

And if it you look at what Trump did with his selection of JD Vance and the nonsense, the misogyny, and all the race baiting and all the anti-immigration stuff that he's doing, he's feeding his base. 

And so these two candidates have made a decision. This is a get out the vote exercise, we have to anger up our base, get them to show up. She's in the lead on that.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Was JD Vance a bad choice?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  So, I think so because the net negatives are there, and I know that Trump has grumbled about the selection. He doesn't see how Vance is helping him. 

Pence was a good choice because he took a back seat, and he helped him with the evangelical Christians. Vance is not a good choice because there's too much negative news around Vance and the campaign. Now he won't admit that. 

There was a moment there where there was a chance for him to get replaced. I guess Trump really thought hard about that and decided not to do it. But he would have done way better with a more moderate vice-president. 

Again, it's not the vice-presidential pick itself, it's the texture that it provides to the overall narrative. If he went with Rubio or Haley, there's a lot of independents that would have held their nose and voted for him.

SARAH FERGUSON:  She has tried quite a popularist message, trying to fix grocery prices, meat prices. If he can go back to that, if he can focus on the economy, is that a winning message for him?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  Well, you have to tell me what she's doing. So I would argue if I was on her campaign team, go on offence. 

In American you win these things on offence; you can't be defensive. She has got to offensive on her record. The Biden record, people feel poor because of the inflation but the Biden record has been, they built a good blueprint. 

They've had a successful legislative agenda, but she is very tentative and she's not explaining this and getting on a soap box and advocating this to common people.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Why not?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  Because I think these are human beings and she's 45 days into being thrusted into the spotlight and that spotlight is super bright. 

The White House, they say, is a fishbowl. A presidential election is a national aquarium, okay. It is way more intense and so she's sitting there, 45 days in, I don't think she's running a good, disciplined campaign and they're telling her to be tentative, to get the bearings down on all the spotlights that you're dealing with and so she's doing that. 

She's trying to tack to the centre, but I think she's got to get out there. It's now after Labour Day in the United States, and the last two months I think are critical. She's got a debate coming up on September 10, which I know she's prepping for. 

I think she is going to be surprising good at the debate. She's smart. She's hard working but she may be overly cautious right now. She's got to break out of that.

SARAH FERGUSON:  So what do you think, can she win what is now an incredibly tight race, clearly too close to call, if she doesn't nail the economic argument.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  I think it will be hard. Listen, I hate saying this because I want Trump to lose, but right now pre-debate he's in the poll position. If you look at the predictive markets and so forth, he's in the poll position. 

He is favoured on two issues that really matter to America, the economy and the issues at the border as it relates to immigration. She can take him on, but she's got to get way more aggressive.

SARAH FERGUSON:  From the very lofty to the very unlofty, does Trump really wear a girdle?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  On certain days, yes.

SARAH FERGUSON:  What is that about?

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  He's an image orientated guy. He is a television entertainer. He hates taking pictures of him from the side. He looks too fat from the side. He likes to take pictures head on. 

He spends a lot of time on his hair. It's sort of a weave thing he does up there. He's got a certain orange war paint that he wears. He's got two-inch heels, lifts and shoes, even though he's a reasonably tall person. 

There's insecurity there. The hypermasculinity is a tell for how insecure the guy actually is. So, what I don't understand, and I think people will write about 50 years from now, is that we just had a group of political cowards that couldn't stand up to the guy. I don't understand. What were they fearful of? 

Maybe it just that they want to stay in power more than they want to serve the public, maybe that is what it is.

So we're stuck with him for now but in 64 days, we could beat him and if we do beat him, it will be very good for the world and it will be good for America. 

If he wins, it is going to be a big problem for the world and a big problem for America. I may have to come live in your basement, Sarah. This may not be far enough way for me.

SARAH FERGUSON:  There's room for you in Australia, Anthony Scaramucci.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI:  Maybe I need to go to Antarctica with the penguins down there. 

SARAH FERGUSON:  Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.