ANTHONY & DEIDRE SCARAMUCCI: Making the Most out of Your Life and Marriage with Mooch and The Mrs.
From Wall Street to Washington, Anthony Scaramucci has had both successes and short lived stints in the spotlight, and now he and his wife, Deidre, are letting you into their lives, literally, with their wildly popular podcast, Mooch and the Mrs., which streams on Radio.com. They might have almost gotten a divorce and still deal with differing political views, but the power couple has come out stronger than ever, and are using their experiences to ensure others have a fighting chance when it comes to love and living their best life.
Anthony, who grew up on Long Island, founded investment firm SkyBridge Capital, served as host of Wall Street Week, and became White House Communications Director in 2017. He has written multiple best-selling books and is the chairman of the SkyBridge Alternatives SALT Conference which is celebrating its ten year anniversary this year. Salt is a leadership forum devoted to unlocking growth opportunities in the fields of finance, economics, entrepreneurship, public policy, technology and philanthropy and brings together thousands of people from all political spectrums. This year's speakers will include Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Donald Trump Jr., and Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor, The Obama Foundation.
With a total of five children between them including two young sons, Anthony and Deidre are determined to dive head first into a future filled with love and personal and professional success – and they're taking you along for the ride with their podcast, where they keep it real, relatable and ridiculously funny. Get ready to strap on your seatbelt and get schooled Scaramucci style!
How did you get the idea for your podcast, Mooch and the Mrs., which gives listeners an inside glimpse into your personal life and marriage? Why do you think it's been so successful?
Anthony: I was invited on a talk radio show at the Entercom affiliate in Los Angeles, KNX, and Ken Charles is the director there. I walked in with my wife and Ken looked at me and said wait at minute, I thought you guys got divorced. I said that's on page one of the tabloids, but you'll read on page 99 that we reconciled. He said, would your wife mind coming on the show and we'll interview the both of you, so we did a 15 minute interview together about our relationship, about politics, about things that have gotten us into trouble domestically and about how tense things are in society right now politically. When we got done, the radio directors there said listen, we can turn this into a podcast and something bigger than that down the road. Six weeks later, after Labor Day, we were at 345 Hudson Street in New York City and we're going to be doing our 30th podcast today. We have picked up advertisers and it's getting a high frequency of downloads. We pick different topics – political, professional, domestic, and husband and wife bickering!
Deidre: There's a little bit of a comedic twist to it. I tease Anthony a little bit which most people don't do, so I think that's one of the appeals. We are on the show just like how we are in real life. There is nothing we don't know about each other. It's fun for people to listen to us in our element and hear Anthony in real life, it's a window into our real personalities.
Labor Day will be a year since we started, and we have been able to do a lot of fun things around it. Anthony's always been in the spotlight, I was always more in the background. I'm not as into political stuff as Anthony, I go roped into politics. I pay more attention to lifestyle things and being a mom. Part of what people enjoy most is our different opinions while not being completely insane to one another. We can have political discourse in a funny way and keep it light. I can insert myself into his little world – he's so expressive and so it's a nice way for me to weigh in on things. We can go to therapy without going to therapy!
How have people responded to your unique style? What do you hope to convey?
Deidre: There are lots of followers who say thanks for doing this, and I feel good about it. If I can be married to someone who has different views on life and politics, than we should be able to have conversations on life at dinner. I think everyone should be able to speak to everyone in a kind and civil manner. They also say it's nice to see people take their relationship seriously rather than just disposing of it. Just in general, people are quick to separate, so it gives people hope.
Anthony: A listener, Marita, who I don't know but she found my email, said 'I listen to your podcast and I love it, absolutely love it, it's so real, so raw and so engaging. I can tell you love each other and you have differences but you work them out every day. It's been great for me and my husband.'
I do think there is a vacuum of what I would call normalcy which is some levels of dysfunction, rationality, and a little bit of confusion and love and all of that comes together.
Deidre: When you open yourself up there are also a lot of social media trolls. Anthony posted a picture of me and this person was like you're wife needs to get it together, her nails are chipped. I have kids, I don't have time to get my nails done every day!
How has it been adjusting to life in the spotlight with your family?
Deidre: We have a combination of five kids. The older ones are well on their way so it was tougher on them having their dad in the spotlight, it's taken more of a toll on them. We're back to whatever normal is and our two little guys have no clue what's been going on, we're just like regular people.
How did you make it through your very public personal drama?
Anthony: It's important to understand you can be "tabloided" in the Post and still love each other, you just have to drop your pride and your ego and say let's see if we can fix those mistakes. I was being photographed in divorce court and I saw my wife's aunt and uncle and I love them, I wanted to talk to them, but I knew I had to wait. I would tell people any time I put my pride and ego in something, my emotions are high and my intelligence is very low. I think that resonated in our first interview on the radio, that I love Deirdre and I want it to work out. A lot of couples have a hard time, everybody has something.
Deidre: I think people can be quick to discard a relationship or take the easy way out by walking away. We showed people that it's possible to work through things.
How do you reflect on your time at the White House?
Anthony: It happened very quickly, the president asked me for a specific job. I obviously made a series of mistakes but learned about eating humble pie and the redefinition of what's really important in life. In hindsight, there were a lot of valuable things that happened to me – I worked in the West Wing, flew on Air Force One – growing up in a blue collar family, that would be an atypical thing to have happened, but as painful as my departure was, I look on it with fondness and it helped me recapture the things in life that are important to me.
Do you think President Trump will win in 2020? What do you think about the current political climate?
Deidre: I think he has a shot at winning. I think he has a strong base, he appeals to people on many levels. I think we've taken it to a whole new level with the division, and people on the right are super on the right and people on the left are very on the left, we're on a very slippery slope. As they say, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. I think Democrats are becoming so extreme that it's working against them to some degree. We'll see how it plays out. Things are driven by the economy, people want jobs and to be able to support their family, so at end of the day, if you can support your loved ones you're probably going to put the person responsible for that in office – he has that on his side.
Anthony: I would add that it's hard to beat an incumbent, and despite the rhetoric and the nonsense of the media and the president's roughness in the media as well, I think he's still very popular. I think people have a tough time admitting that they're going to vote for him but they're going to vote for him. He has a huge support base. I can't tell you the number of people at the Golden Globes and in Hollywood who come up to me quietly and say I want you to know that I support the administration.
What has made SALT such a successful gathering?
Any surprises people can expect this year for the ten year anniversary?
Anthony: We do the conference every year at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, if you go to salt.org you will see all the content we have out there. It's a big event and we're proud to put it on. It's very bipartisan and Diedre helps us curate the event to make sure it has a good balance and cross section of ideas. We have people who have worked for the Trump administration and the Obama administration and Hollywood liberals and conservative talk show hosts. It's very well blended and people can hear opposing points of view but in a civilized way. We are in a coarser society and so our goal is to make the discourse less coarse.
We're going to try to tie it into the Woodstock revival of 1969, so we're bringing John Fogerty of the band Creedence Clearwater Revival, and he's going to sing from his 1969 playlist to tie things back to '69 and our anniversary.
Deidre: The demographic of the conference is about 55 so they'll appreciate it – it will be fun to bring him back!
Any new projects coming up?
Anthony: The paperback edition of my new book, Trump, The Blue-Collar President, just came out and I will most likely start writing my fifth book mid to late summer. It will be more economically related about how to think like an investor in an environment like this.
Deidre: I would love to do more things together and apart. It has brought us some other opportunities, I'm sure more things will come up.
Do you miss being on television as the host of Wall Street Week?
Anthony: I've actually gotten more television exposure after being in the White House and now can do multiple appearances a week.
What are your favorite things to do as a family?
Anthony: We like camping. Our version of camping is The Four Seasons or The Ritz Carlton!
Favorite places to travel? Any trips planned?
Anthony: We're spring breaking at Disney, we've been on a few Disney cruises. Our favorite destination is Hawaii, we go about once a year.
Photo Assistant – Ceres (Diaja)
