Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch, Contributing Photographer

On Thursday, Anthony Scaramucci — a financier, political commentator and 11-day White House director of communications — joined the Yale Political Union for a “fire-side chat” about this month’s election results. It was, he quipped as he approached the stage, “perhaps my last college lecture before I get deported.”

Scaramucci — who was appointed and shortly after fired in 2017 by the former and incoming President Donald Trump — has since become a vocal anti-Trump figure. In the wake of Trump’s victory, several prominent critics, fearing retribution from the president-elect, have been making plans to leave the country.

“Whatever they want to perpetrate against me, I’ll be ready to fight and defend myself,” Scaramucci said in an interview with the News. “It’s important for people to know that there are people in this country that really love the country, have a backbone and will stand up and fight against these people. There’s a lot of people right now that are cowering to Trump’s menacing behavior — that’s not me. It will never be me.”

About 150 Yalies were in attendance when the talk began. Wearing towering Dior sneakers and a blue blazer with a diamond, ruby and sapphire flag lapel pin, Scaramucci spoke to the audience for about an hour, explaining Trump’s appeal and dissecting Harris’ loss. His talk was full of jokes and interrupted by laughter and YPU stomping.

Scaramucci began by speaking about growing up middle class in suburban Long Island — what he termed “aspirational blue-collar America.”

Later, while working for Trump’s 2016 campaign, he was struck by Trump’s popularity, particularly in communities like Scaramucci’s that had been, he said, hollowed out by the offshoring of manufacturing jobs and that were generally disaffected.

He explained a shift, beginning about 40 years ago, in which working-class families went from “economically aspirational to economically desperational” thanks to events like the signing of NAFTA and China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.

“We missed this,” he said. “And there’s been a vacuum of advocacy for these people in this country for probably three decades.” 

The rightward shift this caused, he noted, has only continued in the years since 2016 — even in reliably blue states like New York and New Jersey.

Later, Scaramucci discussed the gulf between the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments — including the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act, both of which helped to raise lower- and middle-class wages — and the poor public perception of the Democratic Party. Scaramucci blamed the Democrats’ image problems on several factors. 

Scaramucci believes that Vice President Kamala Harris, because of her lack of experience in business or finance, did not fully understand the Biden administration’s economic achievements and was unable to communicate them properly. Trump, he added, does not understand the economy either, but in part because of his time on “The Apprentice” reality show, voters simply perceive him as a businessman.

Meanwhile, according to Scaramucci, the “$44 billion megaphone X,” referring to the app formerly called Twitter, is filled with economic disinformation that distorted American worldviews. “It ate people up,” he said. 

For several election cycles, he said, figures like Trump have telegraphed relatability; Democrats, meanwhile, have come across as “elitist scolds.” The Democratic party, he believes, needs to respond to “anti-elitism” and “tone down the wokeism” to win back voters.

After the talk, Lauren Sonnenfeld ’28 was impressed by Scaramucci’s rhetoric.

“I thought he was very charismatic and a good figure to look up to in a tumultuous time,” she said. 

Sonnenfeld added that Scaramucci was “hilarious.” His speech was indeed peppered with jokes and quips; SSS 114 erupted with laughter after a reference to JD Vance LAW ’13 as a “whack job” and an unintentional joke about “fingering.” 

Abhinay Lingareddy ’26, chairman of the Independent Party, said that Scaramucci’s talk left him feeling “hopeful.”

“This is why we lost this election, and this is how we can win again. I think that if this becomes the vision of the new Democratic Party, I think that we may have hope in 2026 and maybe even 2028,” said Lingareddy.

Eric Arabadzhiev ’28, who has been following Scaramucci, agreed that he was a good speaker. 

He was skeptical, however, about the development of his ideas. 

“He’s intellectually honest enough to understand why the Democratic Party lost, [but] in the lead up to the election, he didn’t acknowledge any of that, and he was very overconfident that Harris was going to win,” Arabadzhiev said.

He also questioned Scaramucci’s status as a political commentator, as Arabadzhiev believes that the former White House communications director “wouldn’t have anything to talk about” if it wasn’t for his 11 days in Trump’s administration. 

Scaramucci served as White House Director of Communications from July 21 to July 31, 2017.