CNN: Scaramucci: If President Continues To Be Divisive, He Will Lose His Support

In an interview with CNN’s John Berman, former White House Communication Director Anthony Scaramucci said if the President continued to go in the divisive direction he has been in, he would lose his support among many former administration officials including former cabinet members and former members of the military.

Here is the transcript of the entire exchange:

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR:  Invade, invasion, the very language that was in the screed written by this killer in El Paso.

Joining us now is Anthony Scaramucci, Former White House Communications Director, author of "Trump, the Blue-Collar President."  Anthony, thank you for being with us this morning.

I can tell you've been doing a lot of thinking over the weekend about all of this.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR:  Hey John, good morning.

BERMAN:  These are issues facing the country right now, and again, I know you've been struggling with them as well, issues of hate and issues of gun violence.  If we can, I would like to separate the two in our discussion this morning, a little bit.

First, to the president's speech this morning.  we just heard former Governor Terry McAuliffe say, the president should apologize to the nation for some of the language he has used and the language that appeared in that killer's screed in El Paso.  Is there any chance of that in your mind?

SCARAMUCCI:  Well, I don't think the president's going to apologize.  He spent 40 or 50 years with the strategy of never apologizing.  He's probably apologized a few times in his life, but this will likely not be one of those times, but I think what's instructive here and hopefully people around him are telling him this, when you're sending out tweets that can be perceived as racist, again, not saying he's racist, but can be perceived, or you're saying things that can be perceived as white nationalists, what ends up happening is, you get a group of people that are pretty fired up.

Also, go back through history, the presidency is a bully pulpit.  Teddy Roosevelt said that you could use it to control the news cycle and you could use it as a gigantic world-wide megaphone to express your ideas and your values. 

And so, what's happening now is unfortunately we have lunatics and there's mental illness in our society, it's very, very painful to watch that, and so, when a president uses rhetoric that, frankly, he doesn’t even need to use.  He's got so many good things going on in the economy; there would be no need to use this sort of rhetoric. 

So, it will be interesting to see what happens in the speech, but John, what I would tell you is that the NRA is basically an emperor without clothing right now and what Terry McAuliffe said is totally true.  The president could use his strength with the Republican Party and get some thing done on these gun control laws.

BERMAN:  And I do want to talk about guns, because you have a different position, frankly, than the president has on guns and the Republican Party has, and you've held that position for a long time, and we'll come to that. 

But on the language, it was interesting, you were describing the threat that language can pose.  There's a phrase for that, that has developed over the last few years, it's stochastic terror, it's the notion that, no, no one ordered this person to go commit the terror attack, but overtime, statistically speaking, attacks will happen if people in power -- if people who have a megaphone use this language, because these evil people will use it as an excuse.  Do you see that happening here

SCARAMUCCI:  Well, there's definitely -- there's definitely linkage, but I think it would be unfair to blame the president.  You can't say that it's the president's fault that there's a mentally ill person that used his language to go out and kill people.

BERMAN:  Well, but it's his fault -- you agree that it's his fault he's chosen the words, but he's -- it's only his fault that he has chosen the word invaders, correct?

SCARAMUCCI:  But it is, yes.  But, he should not be -- he should not be using those words.  He's leader of the free world, the country stands for these ideas, the first name of the country is united, it's not disunited. 

It also stands as a beacon of hope for civilization around the world.  Lincoln called it the best -- the last best hope for mankind, so he is the successor of Abraham Lincoln.  He has to handle himself and comport his language in a way that would let people see him in that way. 

And so, when you're saying stuff like this or you're tweeting stuff about Elijah Cumming's robbery, it's just nonsensical.  And if you're saying, well I need to do that because people are up against me in the media or I need to do that because I'm combating things, it's nonsensical, you won the presidency. 

BERMAN:  Right.

SCARAMUCCI:  You've got a great hand and you've got great policies going on around the country.

BERMAN:  As a -- as a supporter …

SCARAMUCCI:  Knock it off, there's no reason to do it.

BERMAN:  … as a supporter of the president, when you see the language that he uses in this document written by the killer, how does it make you feel Anthony?

SCARAMUCCI:  Well again, it's -- forget about the killer for a second, just look at the language itself.  You can't attach the killer to the president, that is totally, in my opinion, not fair, but if you just look at the language itself and if you're sitting around with him putting a speech together or you're sitting around with him thinking about a campaign idea or a campaign policy, you can say, hey, you're the president now, you're not running for office.  I mean this -- you're the president of everybody, this sort of stuff is going to turn off a lot of people and it's going to strike fear in people …

BERMAN:  But Anthony -- Anthony, it's going to -- it's going to …

SCARAMUCCI:  … and you're -- well you finish John.  Let me finish, you're …

BERMAN:  … but let me just ask this out.  Why does he do it?  Why does he do it?

SCARAMUCCI:  You're make the point that it incited the guy. 

BERMAN:  I didn't.  I'm not making that point.  I'm saying it's the same language, I'm -- and I'm asking you how it makes you feel.

SCARAMUCCI:  Why does he do it?  OK.

BERMAN:  Why does the president use this language?  Because it's a choice -- it's a choice and it's a choice over a long period of time.

SCARAMUCCI:  I think he -- I think he -- I -- you know, look, he would have to answer that question.  I can only surmise that he thinks that there's value to creating this sort of combativeness and this sort of combustibility.  He thinks it's value to his base, that it's perhaps stoking them up. 

I mean, I think one of the fears that they would have, if you look at the polling numbers, that they have to get the base out with the highest level of participation possible.  And so, he may be thinking that this sort of stuff is helping his base, but I would argue otherwise.  I would say that his base is probably with him. 

He needs to attract moderates and independents and rebuild a coalition to win in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and I think the way he's going about it with this sort of rhetoric and this sort of nastiness doesn’t' make any sense. 

If he makes a speech today and says, look, the Republicans, we all know, they're basically a bunch of fraidy-cats in the Congress.  They never say boo about me. 

And so, since I totally control them, here's what we're going to do.  We're going to pass background check legislation.  We're going to end -- we're going to increase the opportunity for red flag laws and things like that.

They'll sign that.  He'll get Democrats to come over and get that thing done.  And now, that's more of a moderate Independent view and that's the coalition that he needs to win reelection.

So, I don’t know.  Look, he's the president, I'm not the president.  He has way better political instincts than me.

But let me tell you something, OK?  I have studied the historical documents of the country and I have lived the American dream.  Talking like this is not the best way to handle yourself as the American president.

So, it is what it is.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR:  Yes.

SCARAMUCCI:  I hope he would stop doing it.  People that really like him and want to support him, give us reasons to support you more --

BERMAN:  Well --

SCARAMUCCI:  -- and be faithful, passionate advocates.  Don’t do nonsensical things where we're all scratching our heads saying, OK, how are we going to support that when you're acting in a way that --

BERMAN:  Do you, Anthony --

SCARAMUCCI:  -- doesn’t make sense and is potentially, inciting violence.

BERMAN:  Do you support the president as we sit here this morning?

SCARAMUCCI:  Yes, go ahead -- sorry.

BERMAN:  As we sit here this morning, do you still support President Trump?

SCARAMUCCI:  Yes, of course, I support him.  John, I'm a very -- John, I'm a very loyal guy.  Remember, I got fired two years ago for the Charlottesville thing.  I spoke out against the Charlottesville thing.

BERMAN:  Loyalty is one thing, but the question is -- then the question is Anthony, then -- if the answer is yes --

SCARAMUCCI:  I under -- I under --

BERMAN:  -- you do still support the president this morning, what would it take --

SCARAMUCCI:  I understand that.

BERMAN:  -- what would it take for you --

SCARAMUCCI:  I do.

BERMAN:  -- to stop supporting the president?

SCARAMUCCI:  I -- well, I think he's going in a direction -- and I said this a couple of weeks ago on your air.  He's going in a direction where there's a very large group of people that actually want to support him that are actually begging him to give us reasons to support you. 

He's going in a direction where I guess he doesn’t want that support or he wants people to have this 'twisted like a pretzel' loyalty test with him where he's going to do things that are not making any sense, but I want you to go out there and sort of defend it, OK?

And so, I think there's a large group of people that are going to stop doing that.  And then eventually, people are going to say look, I'm sorry.  The value system and the rhetoric does not outweigh the policies, OK?  And so at some point, that will happen.

And it has not happened for me yet, but there's a lot of us out here.  It's not -- it's not just me.  I'm a little bit more vocal -- perhaps, a tinge more courageous to admit it.

But trust me, it's former White House administration officials, it's former cabinet members, it's former people in the American military.  It's not -- it's not just me.  It's not like I'm the only one -- I may be the only one saying it but trust me, there's a very large group of people. 

If he keeps it up, they'll say OK, the policies -- they're great but you know what?  This sort of rhetoric and this sort of disunity sort of stuff is overpowering the policies.  So why can't we get them --

BERMAN:  He's at risk -- he's at risk --

SCARAMUCCI:  -- both together and figure it out.  That's something that I don’t understand.

BERMAN:  He's at risk of losing -- he's a risk, you think, of losing cabinet -- former cabinet officials?

SCARAMUCCI:  Oh, absolutely.  I mean, there's not even a question about that. 

He's at risk -- what he's at risk of doing is a very large group of people, moderates, Independents, Republicans that want to support him -- not the Republicans that are like making these Auntie Anne pretzels.  I mean, there's a lot of guys in Congress -- when they leave Congress they're going to go to the shopping mall and buy a pretzel franchise.  I mean, these guys are jokes. 

I mean, you got to -- you got to tell the guy the truth.  You've got to tell them where things are at because at the end of the day, it's disunifying and you are the leader of the free world and you are running the United States of America.  It's united for a reason.

So, yes, to me, I support him.  I want to -- I hope he gives a speech today. 

The NRA is an emperor without clothing, obviously.  These guys fall in line with the president.  Anything he says or does, they support on Twitter or elsewhere.

Just tell these guys we're going for universal background checks and end the political nonsense.

BERMAN:  Anthony --

SCARAMUCCI:  Seventy-five percent of the American people are in support of that.  That's your coalition.

BERMAN:  Yes, and the House has already passed two laws to expand background checks.  The Senate could do it today.

Anthony Scaramucci, thank you for being with us this morning.  And I think it's notable that Anthony says, Erica, as we go back to El Paso --

SCARAMUCCI:  Good to be here.