A former high profile member of Donald Trump’s White House administration says he believes the "avalanche" of legal battles facing the former President will almost certainly lead to his demise.
Anthony Scaramucci was sensationally fired by Trump as his communications director just 10 days into the job in 2017 after issuing a profanity-filled tirade against President's previous chief of staff.
Speaking to Newshub from inside his Manhattan office, where TV screens were showing coverage of Donald Trump’s arraignment, Scaramucci made it clear he no longer supported Trump, but argued the charges against him are unfair.
"I'm disappointed that there weren't more teeth to the indictment. First of all, we shouldn't be indicting former presidents unless we have a wickedly high threshold and wickedly high standard. So I'm a little embarrassed for Alvin Bragg looking at the indictment there's really not a lot of substance to it."
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in a hush money case. The historic arraignment and arrest played out live in front of an international television audience likely in the tens ( if not hundreds) of millions yesterday, causing a media frenzy in downtown Manhattan.
Trump arrived in a motorcade that stretched 15 vehicles long, before emerging alone, surrounded by secret service. Scaramucci says it's interesting his family wasn't with him, and it's unlikely they want to be involved in his next Presidential campaign.
"It's also very telling today that not one of his family members was in the courtroom... His family members have more or less told him that they don't really want to participate this time. I think the combination of those things is going to cause him to drop out.”
In fact, Scaramucci doesn’t believe Trump has much time left considering other legal cases that are surrounding him. These include investigations relating to Georgia election meddling, the January 6 Capitol Riots, and the mishandling of classified documents.
"The end is coming. It may not be today, (he) will probably last longer than I think, he's a little bit like a zombie, but I don't think he makes it to the Iowa caucuses which is in January."
Since Trump’s indictment became public last week, the former reality TV star and businessman had capitalised on the media attention.
New polls have shown him widening the gap against other 2024 Republican candidates. Reuters reports that some 48 percent of self-described Republicans say they want Trump to be their party's presidential nominee, up from 44 percent in a March 14-20 poll.
Anthony Scaramucci says Trump won’t be celebrating, but that the more likely scenario is he will be feeling some humiliation.
"He's a human being. He just got arrested and arraigned in the city he grew up in. He just got fingerprinted, and if there's a mugshot it will likely be released. So you just have to imagine, he's a 76 year old man who went to the courthouse today under indictment today and was arrested by authorities...
"He is bummed out".
