Now on bbc news, hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk, im stephen sackur. The Trump Presidency has seen us politics become ever more polarised and partisan. But in the words of one commentator, you aint seen nothin yet. The democrats decision to begin impeachment proceedings based on emerging details of mrtrump . S dealings with the president of ukraine has intensified the Political Warfare in washington. My guest is anthony scaramucci, former trump cheerleader, briefly his Communications Director and now an arch critic. Is impeachment a trap for the president s opponents . Anthony scaramucci in new york city, welcome to hardtalk. Its great to be back with you, stephen. The democratic leadership, after a lot of agonising, has decided to launch impeachment proceedings, impeachment investigations, into president donald trump. Do you believe theyve made the right decision . I dont really think it was necessarily a right or wrong decision. I sort of feel it was the only decision. The Inspector General whistleblower report is out, i read through it this morning and theres irrefutable facts in the situation which would require any patriotic person to act in the way that the democrats are acting. So to me, i dont think it was a right or wrong decision or a political strategy. The president has done something traitorous and criminal, a result of which now, the way the constitution was set up, noble people have to act in a situation like this and so to me its not a political thing as much as its a right or a wrong thing. So there you go, youve already set yourself up as judge and jury, declaring that the president has acted in a criminal, traitorous way. Of course, youre not judge, youre notjury. Why dont you and all the rest of the president s critics wait for events to unfold, listen to witnesses, read all of the evidence, before drawing conclusions . Well, listen, im obviously entitled to my opinion. Theres a First Amendment right in our country so im giving you my opinion and my conclusion. Im not on the jury and as you know from an impeachment process, there are 100 people who will have that opportunity if the impeachment inquiry gets voted on in the house and pushed over to the senate. Im giving you my opinion but if i was on the jury and i was looking at a body of evidence like that, i would be very concerned if i were the president of the United States. 0k, well, i dare say there is some concern in the white house but im guessing youve basically seen pretty much what the rest of americans have been allowed to see, and indeed reporters such as myself overseas. That is, youve seen the transcript released by the white house of the conversation on july 25th between President Trump and president zelensky of ukraine. You also say youve seen the redacted whistleblower complaint. But you have not seen, i dare say, because certainly i havent seen it yet, you have not seen any clear, explicit evidence that donald trump tied favours he sought from the ukrainians to the release of us aid, or maybe you have seen it, you tell me. I probably havent seen more than what you have seen but i think i do have an inside track here, despite the president s recent tweeting about and against me, i did work for him for a year. Very close personal friends with michael cohen. And if you look at the body of the evidence and you know the president s personality as well as i know the president , its in there, stephen. What is in there . There was, despite the rhetoric on the republican side, a quid pro quo exchange. There was a delay of the Vice President going to the ukraine until, quote unquote, we could see how the new ukrainian president was going to act, based on the president s suggestions. There was. If i may say so, mr scaramucci, everything youve just said is inference. I carefully used the word explicit. Everything youve just inferred is absolutely not explicit in the transcripts that have been released thus far. 0k, and so thats why i think we need a full impeachment inquiry and thats why we need witnesses and people inside the white house under oath to explain what actually happened. So again, im giving you my experience with the president and the way he handles himself and the quote unquote inferences youre talking about, this is not a guy thats going to explicitly Say Something that black and white because hes used to this sort of nefarious activity so he will split it the way he is use to doing. So well have a full hearing of that. I believe i will be proven correct in terms of my analysis of these facts but i appreciate your scepticism and i understand your scepticism, but. Crosstalk. Well, ill tell you what. The facts are going to unfold, stephen, and hopefully youll invite me back and well see what happens here, but this guy will not be the president going into the november 2020 re election. He will not be the candidate for the Republican Party. Itjust strikes me as i hear you talk about how clear you think the case is for impeachment proceedings this time around. I have had this similar language before over the last two, maybe getting on for three years, from democrats and admittedly youre not a democrat, but democrats have said for a long time that given their conviction that donald trump was involved in nefarious activities with the russians, so called collusion over the release of information, they said there was a case for impeachment and then guess what . Robert mueller wrote his long report and that clamour, cacophony, for an impeachment proceeding, it died away. It may well be that we see the same thing again. Ok, i think thats very accurate and if you had had me on the show to discuss that happy to have me on the show to discuss that, i would have told you that the president cant even collude with his own staff and so therefore there was no collusion with the russians. We had a a47 page report that detailed that. There were some things that he did on the obstruction side. I for one feel that those attorneys who worked for mr mueller on that report made the right conclusion as it related to obstruction. These are totally different facts, a totally different case, but again, i didnt become a critic of the president or switch my view on the president because of whats going on right now with ukraine. Where i started the slope of criticism is he is out there, man, he is not listening to his staff, he is firing people left and right, 81 people have left the administration, hes a man alone in the white house seeking his own counsel, hes a rank bully with very low self esteem and maybe the stress and the pressure of the job or maybe other things are effecting hisjudgement or personality, but for me, we could stay on the ukrainian thing if you want but in general, this is now a suitability issue for many people that have worked for him, people that are inside the white house, people that are up on capitol hill, and unfortunately, stephen, theres a lot of these people because their lives are tied to this man, they are lacking the fortitude and the courage to speak out about what they are seeing and so hopefully this will open a window for those people to do that. Well, you keep telling me about the president s character and how well you know him. I wanted to talk about the psychodrama of your relationship with President Trump a little later in the interview but youve talked about it so much, lets get into it right now. Its something we cant avoid. The truth is, you were the president s biggest, loudest cheerleader for years. You bigged up his campaign for the presidency in 2016, you were on the transition team, you briefly served him as an ill fated Communications Director, but even when you were gotten rid of after 11 years, you continued to be slavishly loyal. The truth about you and donald trump is that donald trump hasnt changed his spots, you have made one of the most bizarre u turns in political history, but donald trump hasnt changed. Bizarre u turn, ok, thats an interesting way to frame it. But, so the facts that you just elucidated on the show are contrary to what the president said on twitter, and so what the president said on his twitter account, that he barely even knew me and i had absolutely nothing to do with his elect electoral success, so one of the two of those things are probably correct and so what i. Crosstalk. Im not here to defend President Trump, im simply pointing out that time after time, you defended President Trump. Whether it was. No, no. Crosstalk. Hang on, let mejust, if i may. Go ahead, go ahead. Illuminate you with a few of the things you defended and apologised for on trumps behalf for. For example, the tape during the campaign when it became clear that he was proud, he was boasting about his abuse of women, you didnt break with him then. When he talked about the cha rlottesville neo nazi protests and he said that there were good people both on the side of the neo nazis and those who were protesting against them, you didnt walk away from him then. I did though there. Crosstalk. Hang on, when he talked about mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, you didnt walk away from him then. When he described countries that immigrants to american were coming from as, i cant even use the word, s holes, you didnt walk away from him then. You were loyal to President Trump throughout. Ok, so youre being a little unfair and thats not exactly factual. So on the charlottesville situation, i totally denounced that, you can find a tape of me on George Stephanopouloss show, thats a vivid memory for me because that was about six days after i was ousted and fired from the white house. So i was on georges show totally denouncing that. Crosstalk. Forgive me, i spoke to you last year and i discussed that and many other issues and you remained steadfastly loyal to donald trump. You said to me, stephen, i tell you what, judge a man by his actions, not by his words, thats what you said to me. You are usually a very fair guy so give me an opportunity to speak. I definitely said that i could not ever defend the racist stuff that came out of President Trumps mouth. I absolutely said that. In the context of. You told me you did not believe donald trump was a racist. And i still maintain that. I feel that he is objectifying people to such an extent that youre not racist against a black or a white car, you just look at those two things as objects and so unfortunately for the president , thats what he does, he looks at people as objects. So i still maintain that. But lets go back over the list of Different Things that you said. When youre talking about the mexicans as rapists, i was not with the president on the campaign then. I was a jeb bush supporter. When youre fast forwarding into those other categories of things, what i said to the show prior and ive maintained this, i did my very best as a fellow republican to try to defend him the best that i could and to try to weigh the policies that i thought that republicans would put in place versus the democrats in 2016 and i did a balancing test. If im at fault for that, ive issued that apology and i can take you and your viewers to my Washington Post editorial where i said, you know what . I got this wrong and im man enough to admit that i got something wrong. And frankly, im not a politician so when you said i did a political u turn, this is more of a business analytical discussion for me. Im an american entrepreneur. I have a portfolio of companies. There are many times where you hire somebody into a company and theyre not doing a good job and unfortunately you have to fire that person, so for me its not a political thing as much as it is an analytical evaluation of whats taken place over the last three years and the guys not doing it, you know . 0k, 0k. But this is what ijust dont get what you have said as you made your big flip this summer and declared that you could no longer hold your tongue and that you felt that donald trump was an outrage against the us political system and against democracy and had to be removed, you said this, you said, hes gone full blown crazy. While the president may not have early stage dementia, he certainly has full blown early stage fascism. You then went on to say. Oh, that is true. 0k, well lets add another one. I dont understand, you said, how elected Public Servants of the longest standing republican democracy in existing World History can see this sort of full blown insanity and not act. But the message comes back to this. Donald trump essentially, in the way he behaves, the way he puts his message out there, his impulsive decision making, he has not changed from when you were his loudest cheerleader, he really hasnt. Ok, so again, stephen, i have owned that, though. I think that thats one of the criticisms that liberals would say, they will eventually say that to kevin mccarthy, Mitch Mcconnell and other republicans, and so what ive said to people and ill say it here on your show, you have to create an offramp for people that have demonstratively gotten this thing wrong. If you want to ridicule me for getting it wrong or you want to say that i said this at one time and now im saying Something Different and the facts didnt change, im actually willing to accept that. As somebody who was as close to the situation as me would make the argument that maybe im looking at it too closely and i do think the facts have changed, i do think he is in steady mental decline, i do think the evacuation of strong people like general kelly general kelly frankly fired me but he was somebody, and im being very objective about this, he was somebody that was containing some of the worst elements of the president s personality. And so, since his departure, i think you can trace more aggressive, more full blown insanity, and more full blown mania. So again, if you want to ridicule me or point out that i got this thing wrong, i own it. But again, im an american businessperson and so one of the things thats made me a reasonably successful entrepreneur and gone from a blue collar family to where i am today is taking calculated risks, assessing bets, sometimes getting things wrong, but also having the strength of character do say, wow, i really got that wrong so lets make an adaptation and a change. So lets talk about what you can achieve now, and your credibility. Obviously we want to talk to you. Youre an interesting character in us politics, so weve got you on the show. But the question is how much credibility youve got. Emphasis on the word character. Well, look, you want now, you want to be a player in changing america. You have said that you. 0h, absolutely not. Thats not true. Well, you want to lead a campaign. You are going from state to state, with all your media appearances, talking to people, trying to persuade some republicans to get on what you call the off ramp away from donald trump. But how can you do that when the Republican Party has described you as a man with zero credibility, nothing more than a disgruntled employee . How can you tell ordinary republicans across america that youre more than that . Well, first of all, i dont think its fair to call me a disgruntled employee. Because you pointed out earlier in this show that i was fired two years ago and i tried to stay loyal and high minded to the president. And so itd be very hard to say im a disgruntled employee, because why wouldnt i have just broken from him the day after he embarrassed me like that and fired me the way he did . So we can split that you just said, and the gop chairwoman, the person that youre referring to that said i had zero credibility, the total hypocrisy of politics being what it is, was soliciting me two months prior to that for campaign donations. And i had given her and Reince Priebus over 500,000 personally. And so, for me, youll have to assess my credibility, your viewers will have to assess my credibility. But the truth of the matter is theres a lot of republicans that feel the way i do, but due to the president s bullying and due to his personality theyve been reluctant to speak out. And so if im a lightning rod for that, stephen, i welcome that, but im not really looking to be a player. As i pointed out in my op ed, im accidentally into politics. I actually find the whole thing quite disgusting. Theres nothing about politics that attracts me, other than the fact that we have a Huge National and potential International Crisis now. The president said i wasnt part of helping him get elected, but i sort of feel that i was, given the fact that i was on his executive transition team, when you and i first met in december of 2016. And so we have to correct the problem, and so im willing to put my money and time and energy into doing that. And if people think im credible, thats great. If they think im not credible, ill let them decide. But i am speaking the truth. But let us talk about whats actually happening today. And as we see the democrats rallying around the impeachment proceedings, we also see republicans circling the wagons and beginning the relentless messaging that this is nothing more than a toxic, partisan witch hunt. Now, im going to quote to you jim jordan. Im sure you probably know him republican congressman, trump loyalist. He said the other day, pelosi has finally succumbed to unrelenting pressure from the socialist wing of the democratic party. This was never about collusion or ukraine, its all about the 2016 election and the will of the American People and the democrats refusal to accept it. Now, that is the classic republican position today. My question to you, as a guy who knows the Republican Party well is, how do you change that . Well, heres what i would say. I think that may be the classic position right at this moment. But i think as the facts unfold from the whistleblowers report and the Inspector Generals report, i think that there will be republicans already ben sasse and senator mitt romney have expressed their concern over what theyre read in the report, and i think theyve gotten an unredacted version. You and i have seen the redacted version. And so its my guess, based on conversations ive had on capitol hill, that if there was an anonymou