The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Raging Moderates: The Real Housewives of the Oval Office (Feat. Anthony Scaramucci & Gov. JB Pritzker)
Tue, 04 Mar 2025
Jessica Tarlov gets the inside scoop from Anthony Scaramucci—the man who lasted 11 wild days in the Trump White House—on where Trump fumbled in his meeting with Zelensky, what really went down during his short but chaotic tenure, and why Elon Musk’s growing influence in government should have all of us paying attention. Then, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker joins the conversation to break down the creeping authoritarianism in the GOP and make the case for why Democrats need to get back to basics—like fixing the economy—if they want to win big. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Anthony Scaramucci, @Scaramucci. Follow Gov. Pritzker, @GovPritzker. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Anthony Scaramucci and what was his role in the Trump administration?
Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlow. Scott is off today, but I've got the great Anthony Scaramucci on the show. Anthony, welcome. How are you doing? Thank you for joining me.
Well, it's very sweet of you to bring me on. And I haven't seen you in the flesh in a long time. We used to work at Fox together. People forget that because it's probably a decade now, but I hosted Wall Street Week for Fox Business. And we used to be able to share the set together on the Fox News channel and also Fox Business. So it's great to be with you.
Yeah, those were I can't believe how long ago that is, but also how long I've been there. Like when anyone asks about it, I'm like, it's my entire media life has been at Fox. But that was great. And Wall Street Week was such a great and I don't want to say serious. It was obviously serious. There was some levity to it, but it was so substantive. That's the word that I'm looking for.
Wall Street Week was so substantive.
Look, Maria Bartiromo, a very good friend of mine, is still doing that show. She calls it Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street. And so the show had legs. And I got the education of my lifetime because I left Fox to join the Trump administration.
Yeah.
And so it's been the education of my life.
Well, we still talk about your tenure there. Scaramucci's or Scaramucci is a... I don't want to say daily use. I mean, certainly on the Internet, it's a daily use. But we think about it. But you have unique perspective.
Yeah, listen, I'm just glad that the president, when the president goes after me on his Truth Social account, he does use 11 days. And I think he should be the official scorer because some of these journalists that don't like me, they use 10 days. And that hurts my feelings, Jess. I don't want to have my feelings hurt. Why chip me at a 9.1 percent of my federal career?
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Chapter 2: What happened during Trump's meeting with Zelensky?
Hey, at least you're in the space. I want to be in Trump's head space and I want to be one of his irritants.
I think you're pretty effectively doing that, but let's hope that we can continue to push that goal forward in today's episode. So we are going to be talking about Trump's explosive meeting with Zelensky, the state of the free press and free speech in the White House. And later on, I have an interview with Governor Pritzker to talk about how he's standing up to the Trump administration.
So, Anthony, let's get into it. Last week, I think saying it got heated is an understatement of what went on in the Oval Office. Donald Trump and Zelensky's meeting turned into a full-blown shouting match. Trump berated the Ukrainian leader while Vice President J.D. Vance questioned whether Zelensky had shown enough gratitude for U.S. support.
Zelensky left early, the press conference was scrapped, and Trump later posted that Zelensky can return when he is, quote, "'ready for peace.'" Where do you think this leaves U.S.-Ukraine relations? And what's your general response?
Chapter 3: How is the U.S.-Ukraine relationship evolving under Trump?
I've seen some of your posts on social media, but for our audience, can you just talk about, you know, your gut reaction to what happened and where you think we are now?
Well, first of all, I maintain that that was a setup. And I maintain that the way J.D. Vance, Vice President Brantz, went after President Zelensky was a setup and it was contrived. And I, you know, I watched it now several times. I think the one thing that President Zelensky did, which I wish he didn't do, Was he said, you know, you're protected by this ocean, but you'll see what will happen.
And that obviously antagonized Trump. But the outcome of that would have been the same if Zelensky was Mother Teresa in that meeting and he was the combination of Keir Starmer and Macron and other people that have been president. lauded by the press for doing well with Trump, it's still that would have been the outcome. They were trying to get that outcome. They were trying to eject him.
For some reason, they've aligned themselves with the Kremlin. They use Kremlin talking points when they're talking about the Ukrainian situation and the country, Ukraine. And that's fine. I don't agree with it, but that's them, right? So they went hard at him. Trump is a television producer. He even admitted that this is good TV and reality television, which Trump was a star of for many years.
You need conflict. And so this is this is the the conflict set up. It was sort of like watching the real housewives of the Oval Office when they were doing this to President Zelensky. And and I think it has real ramifications for the United States. I just want to give you this analogy. And I want your viewers and listeners to think about this.
Let's say you have a blue collar kid and he he rises in his family. He's got a lot of poor people in his family. And he rises and he's wealthy now. And so maybe he buys a few cars or maybe he helps out with some tuitions or plays some emergency medical expenses. That's one family. And then the other family, the same thing happens.
And the person builds this big, beautiful mansion with a swimming pool. And then they say to their family members, okay, you can come over to my swimming pool today on a Saturday, but I'm going to charge you admission into my swimming pool. And America has to understand something about itself, whether they like it or not. The world sees America very different than Americans see America.
And so how does the world, at least when I was growing up in the world, the world saw America as a benevolent country, generally. The world saw America as a peacekeeping country, generally. Not that we didn't have failures in Vietnam or Afghanistan and so forth, but in general, We were trying to provide a security umbrella for the free world. And Trump doesn't understand this.
And I tried to explain it to him in 2016, but he dismissed me. Eisenhower didn't want them to spend the 2%. Eisenhower was the first head of NATO. And he told Marshall, don't let him get to that threshold. The less military spending around the world, the better we're a benevolent democracy. We'll spend. He didn't want Germany to rearm back in the 1940s and 50s. And so Trump wants them to.
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Chapter 4: Why is Elon Musk's influence in government a concern?
And my response to those people is, you're right, you do. but we also need to help the world. Because if we don't help the world and a fire breaks out somewhere in the world, we're going to get drawn into it. You know, USAID, you mentioned that. Let me just point this out.
When we were pumping USAID into Guatemala and into the lower part of the Yucatan Peninsula, we had less border traffic because it's like an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. You put one, two, three billion dollars into those economies and people have jobs and they have some satisfactory living standards. They don't run with their newborn baby 800 miles to the border. Right.
But we're now going to cut the USAID. And so you're going to cause more problems, more stress. But by the way, if you've got medical illnesses and you've got viral activity in Africa or other parts in the world, are we breathing the same air, Jessica? Are we? I think we are. So what's going to happen? What's going to happen? You don't want to stop the illnesses in Africa?
You want them to transfer to everybody around the world? Is that what you want to do? Okay. But again, it's the rich mansion holder. Is he going to help the world or is he going to charge them to go to a swimming pool? You got to make a decision and you got to educate your people. Yes, yes, we left you out.
We left you out due to our ignorance and our apathy, but we've got to integrate you back in.
Well, that brings me to a point that Scott has been making for the last couple of weeks is that this all has to be framed around economics. Everyone is sick of the moral argument. They're done with it. They're not interested in like, well, we're nice guys, right? And this is what nice guys do. They see something terrible and they want to go and help someone.
You have to hear about the brass tacks of what's going on, like how our farmers are benefited by those USAID contracts. And a lot of Republican senators have been standing up and making those arguments. Senator Wicker, Senator Moran, for instance. So I'm in complete agreement. And you said so many things that were interesting to me. And I'm sure that I'm forgetting some of them.
But I wanted to add... to the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party having a baby. And we ended up with MAGA. And you said, we need someone who can speak to this. And I've been thinking a lot about Bernie Sanders, who I have never been a supporter of in 2016. I was a big Hillary person. That was who the base wanted. The base of the Democratic Party has consistently been Black voters.
Bernie Sanders has never appealed to Black voters in any sort of consistent or large way. But when you look at how the coalition got scrambled in this election, you say like white working class people like Donald Trump. Well, look at the 2024 results. Now it's black, Latino and white working class people and some Asian as well liked what Donald Trump was selling.
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges facing the free press under the Trump administration?
I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I moved my principles to serve Donald Trump. And then I said, okay, that's a bridge too far. I have to tell people the truth about what I'm seeing. And I have to explain to people. Now, will Rubio do that? I don't know, but he's a politician. Politicians want power. You remember what Jack Kennedy said about the profiles of courage?
They said to him, congratulations, you won the Pulitzer Prize. Oh, thank you. But the book is so thin, Senator Kennedy. Why is the book so thin? He said, well, there's not a lot of courage out there. I could only find, you know, 10 or 14 situations. The book Profiles of Cowardice would have been the Encyclopedia Britannica. But I could only find a few stories. And that's why the book is so slim.
I love that. And I didn't know that. I wanted to pick up on something because you mentioned the separation of powers. Right. And Paul Ryan, you know, essentially being told that he worked for Trump and what's going on with Elon Musk and Doge and watching that cabinet meeting play out where you could tell that at least half of the people in that room were
were doing a, you know, dying Marco Rubio inside, you know, watching Musk parade around in the tech support shirt and having an understanding that not only do the American people not want this.
They want waste, fraud, and abuse cut, but they don't want an unelected billionaire serving himself over serving the American people, but that they might not be able to do anything about it, which I think is folks who have gotten into public service that should at least be part of the concoction of what motivates you to do it.
Even if you are someone like a Linda McMahon, you know, or Howard Lutnick, et cetera, I think that They understand that public service, at least in its prior form, used to be about making the country as good as possible for the widest amount of the largest amount of people. And so where do you think the musk of it all shakes out? You know, people say they're going to have some huge fight.
They're going to break up. Trump doesn't like not being in the spotlight anymore. And it feels like Musk is increasingly taking it as someone who was on the inside of all of this. How are you viewing it?
Well, so I have this contrarian view on the situation because Musk is the richest person in the world and lit Trump up with $300 million during the campaign. And he has a $44 billion megaphone known as Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it. And I think Trump is afraid of Musk, if I'm just being brutally honest. You can even see it in the tentativeness when he talks to Musk.
Now, he wants Musk to burn out. He's told people inside his inner circle, who I still speak to, that Musk will get bored and Musk will burn out and go back to his job. Let's let him burn out on his own without us pushing him out. And Trump, I know his personality well, was projecting in the cabinet room. Anybody that doesn't like Musk, speak out or forever hold your peace, that's him.
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