President Donald Trump’s former White House communications director just explained that the White House teleprompter operator accused of betting on the president’s speeches made one big tactical mistake — he thought MAGA would back up someone who is not rich.
“I think the problem with what's happening with the teleprompter guy — he probably heard the president say that he was going to pardon everybody inside 200 to 250 feet of the White House, as reported in ‘Regime Change’ by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman,” Anthony Scaramucci told MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace on Thursday. “But he doesn't qualify, the poor kid, because he doesn't make enough money. He's not influential enough, and his last name isn't Trump. So the kid's obviously in a lot of trouble, and he's going to pay the price while the president's going to go on to make several billion dollars for himself.”
When it comes to Trump’s history of insider trading while in office, Scaramucci argued that the president does not care about the ethical issues involved. In fact, he believes he is clever.
“He sees it as incredibly smart: ‘Look how smart I am. The other people that held his position, they couldn't do this. Look how great I am,’” Scaramucci said. “While Barack Obama had a seven- or eight-page financial disclosure, he had a phone book of 927 pages. And, oh, by the way — you pointed this out — he thinks it's peanuts compared to what the tech blogs make, etc. He also thinks a lot of the stuff that he's doing is legal.”
Scaramucci added, “And if you look through the financial disclosure, where he was actually breaking the disclosure law, he's paying the $200 requisite fine. So he's laughing his way to the bank. His attitude is, ‘You know, this is what all presidents should have been doing. Look how smart I am.’”
The allegation is that Gabriel Perez, who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since the 2016 election. Now, according to ABC News, used inside knowledge of what Trump would say in his speech to win more than $100,000 on Kalshi wagers. Davis Ingle, a Trump White House spokesperson, told the reporters investigating for ABC News that "the staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC,” or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Despite Perez being seemingly held accountable, Scaramucci has pointed out that Trump and his high-level aides have allegedly engaged in insider trading without consequences.
“Answer these questions: Are you allowed to insider trade in Congress?” Scaramucci posted on X earlier this month. “Can the president do his so-called businessman’s deals? Is any of this actually legal?”
He continued, “My opinion is: It smells terrible and it should be stopped. But we’ve lost our sense of shame. Trump said 2 things: 1. It’s peanuts and not that much money. 2. Nobody cares. That second one is the one that should keep you up at night.”
Scaramucci finished by saying, “Hopefully people actually do care. Hopefully they show up in November and send these guys a message.”
Speaking with this author for Salon in 2018, Scaramucci argued that Trump’s appeal was based on voters who struggle economically believing his populist message and hoping that he would help them.
“What I saw was in a generation we went from aspirational working class families, like the one I grew up in, to [desperate] working class families,” Scaramucci said. “What I saw is a decline in wages causing some level of economic asphyxiation for a very large group of people. And so Trump being out there, going into those areas, explaining the policies that he’s going to put in place, and then executing on some of those policies. I mean it’s not me saying, it’s just go look at ‘The Wall Street Journal.’”
