Anthony Scaramucci, who served as former President Donald Trump’s White House communications director for 10 days in 2017, claimed his old boss may fake an illness to end his 2024 campaign.
Scaramucci made the curious claim on Friday’s edition of AC360. He appeared alongside CNN contributor and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger to discuss the nascent 2024 Republican field.
Anderson Cooper cited the fact that Trump is currently under indictment in Manhattan with potentially more charges to come from Georgia officials and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Despite the indictment and other looming legal threats, Trump has a hammerlock on the nomination, according to recent polling. Cooper asked Scaramucci if more indictments could change that.
“I do think that’s going to impact him,” he responded, before claiming Trump’s family has been relatively absent from his side this time as opposed to his campaigns in 2016 and 2020. “It’ll be a very time-consuming. But I think the absence of his family members in this campaign is gonna knock him out of the race. He just doesn’t do well without them.”
Scaramucci noted that Trump’s children play major roles in the Trump Organization, and were also involved in his administration.
“They want nothing to do with this campaign, Anderson,” he said, seemingly ignoring the frenetic broadsides Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric have been firing on his behalf on TV and online. “And they were conspicuously absent from the courtroom. So, I think he’s gonna have a hard time. He may not even make it to the Iowa Caucuses – not because of anything other than the combination of the lawsuits and the family’s absence.”
Cooper seemed taken aback by Scaramucci’s response.
“Wait, so you think he might actually drop out?” he asked incredulously.
“Well, he would fake an illness or something like that,” Scaramucci responded. “He would come up with a very clever excuse, but, but–I don’t even–listen, you get hit with two more lawsuits like this, maybe another arrest and arraignment in Georgia and your family’s nowhere to be seen and you’re somebody like Donald Trump, it’s possible. You can’t rule it out.”
Kinzinger replied that while he likes the optimistic theory, it is unlikely to come to fruition.
“I mean, everybody is just waiting that you know, Donald Trump’s gonna magically get out of the race,” the former congressman said. “And we were doing that in 2016 as well.”
