10 months ago
Davos, Switzerland — The "Mooch" says the Davos crowd is getting it wrong.
Anthony Scaramucci says the consensus of CEOs, diplomats and journalists at the annual World Economic Forum is that former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 election.
The good news for Scaramucci, an outspoken critic of Trump following an infamously brief stint in his White House, is that he says the Davos attendees made the wrong call in 2016 and 2020.
"He's losing the election," the financier said.
Scaramucci outlined his case to POLITICO over scrambled eggs and coffee at the Davos Hilton Garden Inn, where he holds court at a reserved table. (It's "like an Italian diner over here," he says.) Trump is a big topic.
Scaramucci argues that Trump is not well-liked outside his base. He says America's bloc of independent voters will be turned off by reminders of the former president's "craziness" and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. There's litigation tied to election interference and legal disputes about Trump's standing on the ballot. The economy's "halfway decent."
"So I don't see the guy winning," he said. "I stand alone in this delegation in saying that. This is like a match sailing race here. These are all elitists. They've got to make sure they don't offend each other. They look to the left, they look to the right. It's like, 'What does the cognoscenti say? Let me say that, so this way I'm inside the mainstream.'"
If it comes down to Trump versus President Joe Biden as expected, the SkyBridge Capital founder said business leaders should back the sitting president. Biden’s too old to be commander in chief in Scaramucci’s view, but “he’s got a great staff, and they’ve done a good job."
With regard to Trump, Scaramucci said business titans are failing to study political history.
“The business leaders were generally okay with Mussolini. They were generally okay with Hitler. Until it goes crazy,” he said. “Then five years into it the cronyism kicks in, the unpredictability of the law kicks in, the expansion of autocratic powers kicks in. ... [Trump] has told you he wants to be a dictator. He has told you that he wants to expand the executive powers. He has told you he’s going to go after his enemies.”
A Trump adviser dismissed Scaramucci's comments.
“Scaramucci lasted all of eleven days [at the Trump White House] before his big mouth got him in trouble and fired," the adviser, who asked to be unidentified, said in a text message. "Seems like he hasn’t learned his lesson.”
English (US)