Anthony Scaramucci describes stomping grapes, getting fired by Trump and overcoming adversity

both had our ups and downs. His may have been higher ups and maybe downer downs. But we're not here to compete. We're here to talk about food, party politics, food and party parties, food and family, food and memories. Up to date, spent about ten minutes with Antony, but it doesn't feel that way for me. The night we met in the River Cafe was an immediate connection. I agree with my friends. How lucky am I to have him here today? How lucky am I to share stories?

How lucky am I to kind of feel he's my friend?

I mean, I don't know what the hell I was doing in that show.

big believer that life is about expectations. Lower expectations, higher positivity, higher outcomes.

is when you have no empathy. And it turned out that it was signed by someone who was it Nuremberg, you know, judge at Neuremberg. And it made me think about how empathy. If we don't have empathy, what do we have. I think it's so well, crucially.

other people. He's a sponsor. He's a phone call away from someone that's depressed or in need of something, or trying to help somebody stay off of whatever the drug is that they're addicted to. And I think when you're helping people, you're at your best. And if you're helping people, your empathetic tours whatever their struggle is, you know. And so to me, I think empathy is the whole thing empathy is. But a lot of these norses is frankly,

they don't have a lot of empathy. There are people political leaders and whatnot that they objectify people and they're just in their field of vision. Do either do a transaction that's favorable or unfavorable, and then they're immediately discarded like it's it's almost like a video game for a lot of these people, unfortunately.

I got I asked fire from the White House, blown into Pennsylvania Avenue, skinned alive by the media, rolled in margarite, assault, and I was on the Santa Monica promenade. Don't know if you've ever been out there at that open door promenade on third and fourth Street. And my son at that time, he's thirty three now, but he was twenty five. Then he put his arm around me and he said, Dad,

are you going to be okay. It was the first time in my life where my son was parenting me as opposed to be parenting him, and I didn't really remember the feeling if I was going to be okay or not, but I remember what I said to him. I said, yeah, going to be okay. Watch what I do with this. And I think it's very important for kids to see their parents get through things, whatever they may be, because then in their mind they have space

for their own failures. They have space for whatever they come up short on in their lives where they can say, Okay, well that's happened to my mom or happen to my dad, and they were able to get through it. I can do. I find a lot of my very wealthy friends. They sanitize their life, Ruthie. They have a life that goes up into the right. It's a perfect story. They made

no bad decisions. I can't tell you the number of billionaire memoirs that I've read where I'm a gas that the perfection of all their choices, and then you look at their kids, and their kids are always eclipsed by all that, and it creates great insecurity. I just think it's super important for your children to see your fallibility, your mistakes, but also your grind, your ability to get up and get going after your.

I had some financial independence. And now I had a chance to work for the American President. And the funny thing about this is just a side of my bad judgment or my immaturity. My mentor, who I totally respect, was about ten years older than me, was given a big job in the administration, and in December he called me to say he wasn't taking it, and I said what, And he said, no, I'm not going to take it.

I spent enough time with Trump to know that we're like oil and water and it's going to end badly for me if I take the job. And my ego's in the right place and I'm not going to take the job. But that wasn't me, Ruthie. I took the job because my ego and my pride were driving me to the notion that I was going to work in the White House and help solve some problems and work on policy and help people. I mean, it was a little bit of idealism in there, but what there really

was was a lot of ego centers. It was filling the self narrative of me, and it was quite detrimental. I mean, Deirdre and I almost got divorced. I missed the birth of my fifth child I was in It still pains me to talk about it, but I'll share it here. James was born on July twenty fourth, twenty seventeen. It was a Monday. I was with President Trump at the Boy Scouts event in West Virginia. Deersa and I

were fighting. She was due on August eighth or ninth, and she was delivering prematurely, a couple of weeks early. And there's a sixty mile no fly zone around Air Force One. So an Air Force One comes into an area, they have fighter planes, but they also have you know, you can't go over Air Force One. You can't fly over that airspace. And so it was an impossibility to get back to New York. So I missed the birth of my son. So you have to imagine this week.

I'm working for President Trump. It is not going well because there's a lot of internescent fighting in the White House. Trump is doing things that a lot of us are looking at same ways. I don't want to be involved with that. Fighting with him, and I get fired, almost divorced. Missed the birth of my son. So again, if you're having a bad weekend, he was having a bad week, give me a call. I can tell you about a really bad week. But we should take it back to food. But I'm just saying, do.

You know, I had like two out of five weekday nights, and so I had beef Wellington with him in a salad.

working with Joe Biden's team. She's not her own team. It wasn't like her office is based in Delaware, it wasn't based in northern California. So this was a tremendous disadvantage.

entertainment is better, the food is better. The Democrats have the culture, which is why Trump is pissed off of them all to which is why he you know, decapitated the Kennedy Center, right because you know, the Democrats look at him, or the artists look at him like a knuckle dragging ogre, and so you know he's gonna, I guess,

bruise them by taking over the Kennedy Center. And like you know, he knocked out board members of the Kennedy Center were giving tens of millions of dollars of donations to the arts and to the performing arts in the country. And so he's not going to replace that money. He's not going to give anybody his money. That's not how he operates. So and by the way, you know, we're in the United Kingdom. You're not allowed to compare Trump to these fascists. So I'll try not to do that.

But Mussolini did dead took over the arts. What happened to Mussolini in the end? People turned on him, right, So I mean, you do enough crazy stuff over time that people will turn on you and.

left out this twenty sixteen. In my neighborhood, I would describe the neighbor I grew up in as economically asper. My father didn't make a lot of money, but he certainly thought its kids would go on to make some money and live the American dream. It was upward mobility, I would say. When I was campaigning with President Trump and I was by accident with him because I was with Jeff Bush Jet Bush lost, he asked me to

go work for him, and so I accepted. I mean, I made a lot of mistakes, but perhaps that was the first one. But what I saw is very relevant for twenty twenty five because I'm sure it's happening here in the United Kingdom. There is a feeling of lower and middle income people that they're not getting ahead for their children. Forget about themselves for a minute, my dad

economically aspirational. Today, same person, they're feeling economically desperational. They don't have the same living standards that they once had in blue collar America. And by the way, when I was with the president President Trump in twenty sixteen, I priced my dad's wages and I told him that those ways are now down twenty six and a half percent in real terms, that would put my family not in a small house, but renting somewhere, possibly on an EBT

or governmental assistance card. And so there's a real dilemma going on in the country now. He unfortunately has taken advantage of it for his own personal purposes, and those people are galvanized to him because they don't feel there are other alternatives. There haven't heard anything from the establishment politicians in thirty years. You know, those people's grandparents voted

for Linda Johnson, they voted for Jack Kennedy. Maybe the great grandparents voted for FDR, but the Democrats left them. The Republicans were never with them. And so Trump's populous message has galvanized a lot of people. And of course you've had the Democrats make a lot of missteps in terms of the way they handle the last election. But there's it would be remiss of me not to bring up the dilemma, why are fifty percent of the United

States voting with him? There were forty of us that worked for him, that begged people not to vote for him.

through empathy. We'll care about the people who don't have health care, or care about the people who are waiting at the border to have a new life. Instead of saying these people do not deserve this, we were angry at these people. And that's what that's what's what I think was manipulated by is that. It's a long conversation, but I think there were two ways to go. There's the and you worked for com you worked for the Democrats, and I know there's so many problems, but I work.

is a hiring decision that's based on popularity. Now, you know it's not a hiring decision that's based on qualifications. Having a popularity contest versus sitting around in a boardroom trying to make a decision.

are listening, it'd be really mad at me. But I did Gavin Newsom's podcast that I told him this, how do you let Elon Musk and Bobby Kennedy out of your party? As an example, Lennon Johnson would have never done that. Okay, Joe Biden And it turns out it was probably Joe Biden's staff, now that we're learning about Joe Biden. But he gets disinvited from the Electric Vehicle summit. What are you guys doing? Lindon Johnson had one of the best lines ever. Let's get all the elephants into

tent this way. If they have to take a piss, they piss out of the tent. Don't let an elephant outside of the tent that could potentially piss into the tent. Elon and Bobby Kennedy really helped Donald Trump more than people realize.

a construction worker. Smoker, drinker, super hard guy, not gonna bes anybody. So he was very tough on us as kids. Three. I have an older brother and a younger sister. My mother was a cosmetologist. Okay, so when I go on TV I have my makeup, she will call me and tell me I've got the wrong color. Your Mac number five is my you know, cosmetology like cosmetics, and so we rarely saw her on Saturdays because she was with

bridal parties on Saturdays making them up. And she worked at a local nail salon and sold cosmetics and did makeup artists basically. But those are my parents' jobs, super hard working, very tight, lots of tight financial situation, a lot of middle class upbringing. I would never dishonor my parents by telling you I grew up poor. I did

not grow poor. We had a great middle class upbringing, but a small house, you know, and we had you know, I mean had a little hallway kitchen with a sixpansive beautiful kitchen here we had my mother had this little hallway kitchen, and then off the kitchen there was a little vestibule that had a round table that really could fit six, but we always had eight to ten people shoved into.

town as her. It was an arranged marriage, and so he went to Italy, back to the town he was from, and him and his mom and dad selected my grandmother and they did some kind of agreement, and believe it or not, there was a dowry and all kinds of stuff, and she moved to New York had three children.

an army hospital for about two months. I rejected the opportunity to get disc George and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge and then he went on to Potsdam and so he had an incredible story in the war. My other uncle got to the war for the Battle of the Bulge as well. But I'm from a family of Italian immigrants. On both sides. It was old school stuff, Ruthie. We're talking about stepping on grapes at about we're talking

about in a bathtub. I can remember my uncles and grandfather wash your feet and you get up on the grapes, you step, crush him down. They scoop all that up, put it in a press. I mean this wine we were see you and I are old enough to remember the tropicana class charge. You remember, Okay, so my grandfather was probably forty proof red wine. Okay, we're talking about like grape spike, grape juice, and I can remember, but I just remember I remember getting drunk on it at

age eight or nine. I mean he would he would put it in a glass tropic cana I just thought it was grape juice. I was drinking it was getting drunk off the sub. But but we had we had pigs. Slaughter the pig.

very strict about us speaking Italian. My parents speak Italian. My uncles, of course spoke Italian, they're not a deceased, but none of us spoke Italian. But they were old school people. I mean, you know, when I'm sixty one now, when I think about that time in my life. Even though my father was rough on us and he was a hard blue collar guy, not educated, there was a family atmosphere that was very solidifying. I think you learn

from your family what they care about. And my grandmother had one of the best lines ever, which I always say to my kids, what other people think of you as none of your business. And it's very important to tell kids, especially in the age of social media, because they can get on the social media and it can give them a distortion of what's going on in the world. They can feel insecure or left out or have fomo. And the message from the nineteen twenties and thirties is

an immigrant Italian relax. You know what I mean? You know, don't care. Mel Brooks has a great line which I always tell the kids, You'll relax. None of us are getting out of your life. You relax, you're fire from a job, who cares, have a step back in your business. Relax.

And you talk about you know your grandmother in a way that there are probably many many ways to describe your grandmother who did but you also your memories are of the food you had. I can picture your mother's kitchen. I was wondering if you might tell me about how food is in your house right now.

sort of centered around food. But I will say this to you, that something that I miss that we really try to get back to, which is really hard in our current culture, which is what we're doing right now. We're at the table, we have no phones, we're eating, we're talking to each other, We're locked in, and I really benefit from that as a kid, you know, with my grandparents in the room where my you know, my

grandmother had some of the best lines. I always tell people my grandmother used to say to us that the best among us, and she said it in Italian. I wouldn't even know how to say it in Italian, but it translates like this, the best among us choose not to judge human frailty so harshly. It's not a beautiful way to think about people. And then you know the other thing that she always said to us, which I try to take with me. She's very religious. She was

very Roman Catholic. She went to church, confession, communion, the whole thing. But she really believed in karma. She was like, if you do, you know, be the first one to give, you know, don't you know. And I'm bastardizing it now, I'm making it more modern. But it was like, a don't be transactional, be nonlinear in life, you know what I mean, do a favor for somebody without them asking, or you know, hand the extra dollar to somebody that may need it. There was a generosity about her that

I tried to take with me. She was also a maid, so I always say this to my kids. You know, when I'm in a hotel, I'm always leaving money in the room because it could be somebody's grandmother. You know. I think about my grandmother, what she had to do, the wrisk she had to take to come to the United States, marrying somebody she really didn't know, building a family, but also had to work. It was a dual income

family to survive. But she couldn't get a job and she didn't speak English, so she was turning beds, you know. And so I think about that all time, and I think people have to put in perspective their lives and treat the other people around them with some level of kindness. And that's something you're great at, which is why your restaurant is learning. The food is great, but you're great

at that. But when I think about food, that is part of that giving thing, you know, like I'm always I mean, if you come to my house, you're gonna eat to the point of explosion, right, because.

sales desk. He was a Jewish guy from San Francisco. He's like, mooch, your grandmother and your mother they cook. I said, yeah, they cook. He says, all right, you do Sunday you do Sunday meals? I said, yeah, we do Sunday meals one o'clock on a Sunday after church. All right, I want to impose my fiance on your mother. I got to come out and have an old school

Italian home cooked meal. You're welcome anytime. And so he came up to the little house with the litanoleum, you know Carol Brady from the Brady Bunch called, wanted the paneling back. I mean, that's the house I grew up in. And we were at that little table verse six where we had eight people there or ten, and my mother cooked up a storm. My sister was there helping her. And when the meal was over, my sister and mother got up and they started cleaning. Okay, did I get

up and start cleaning? I did not, And his fiance got up and started cleaning, and Gary looked over me says, you're not going to get up and helped them clean, and I looked at them. I said, no. That never dawned on me. Okay, it was so patrioical. Okay that literally didn't get it, didn't get up. And so we're now fast forward to where we are today. Right. I always try to remind people we've come a long way from that experience, but some of us grow up like that,

So go a little easy on us. So we're doing the best weekend. I mean, I'm I'm all about the equality, I'm all about the whole thing. But in a traditional family, that's how it went down, and there was no there was even a discussion about it. But I was twenty seven or twenty eight years old when it dawned me, Wait, you're doing You need me to watch that vision having made ruthy, I've changed diapers.

twelve yellow Dati tomatoes. They're quartered and seeded. And then there's one hundred milli liters of extra version olive oil. And then this is the kicker, which makes the thing taste amazing. It's one tablespoon of red wine vinegar, which you can taste it in the sauce. It is absolutely delicious. Two hundred and fifty grams of linguini. Of course, we're going to cook Dad al Dante, and here's what we do. You take the red wine vinegar. This lists of recipe.

It's important that you serve this on hot plates, but you mix the fresh and dried oregano together, combined the tomatoes with extra version olive oil, the red wine vinegar, and sea salt and black pepper. So he mixed all of that up. Then you set that aside to marinate. If I set that right, marinate, cook the linguini and a generous amount of boiling salted water. Then drain and return to the pan. Toss with the oregano mixture and

the marinated tomatoes until very hot. Then, sirve, But I noticed something that your chef did which I thought was awesome. He took some of the water which was loaded with salt and some of the starch from the pasta, and he poured that into the saute, which gave it a little bit of a thickening quality, and added a little dash of salt. So I thought that was majestic. So this is linguini with fresh and dried oregano. And I don't know how did I do? Did I say that? All?

he was I asked him his comfort food. He remembered eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with his mother before she died, and that was something he meant to him. But I think we do go to food for comfort. You've had the need of comfort, you have had need for comfort in your life.

things are going to go well. Other things are not going to go well. But food for me is that anchor. It reminds me of what is important. And I'm going to send you I did this thing for Vox Media and they said, okay, so what did you do after you got fired?

foster situation. He ended up marrying her, and he had the indelible ink on his forearm. And he was the nicest, loveliest person, literally you could imagine. And I used to go to dinner with him at a local Italian restaurant and I'm going to show you something with my hand, and for the people are listening to audio, I'll explain what I'm doing. When the plate got served, Ruthie, he would look over at me, wash my hand. He would

go like this. He would go like this, and this sweeping of his hand, looking at the abundance on the plate. He was sending a message to me. He was like Anthony. I was in a refugeek. I was in a concentration camp as a young kid, got rickets. They didn't feed me. Now I'm in the United States. He had this beautiful wicker furniture company that he built, and he was a

multi millionaire many times over. And every time the plate landed in front of him, Ruthie, he took his hand and he sweeped it over the plate, like acknowledging the miracle of the abundance and the simplicity of that meal. We need to think about that in our lives, you know, we have to. When the plate hits and we're able to eat it and we're nourished by this beautiful earth

that we're living on. Think of that man who started his life, the early part of his life in a concentration camp, and how grateful he was for that meal.