Scaramucci: Trump will go down in history as a 'domestic terrorist' and 'insurrectionist'
Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director, says former president Donald J. Trump's legacy will be that of a "domestic terrorist" and an "insurrectionist” following the mob of supporters that attacked the Capitol.
"I think this will certainly be his legacy," Scaramucci told Yahoo Finance Live on Wednesday during the second day of the U.S. Senate's impeachment trial against Trump. “This will even eclipse the 13 million jobs lost. It'll eclipse the malpractice of the pandemic. I'm not trying to make light of the 430,000 people that died, which is unbelievably tragic. But you can't blame every single death on President Trump. But you can blame this on him.
“He'll go down in history — once people have a moment to reflect on this — as a domestic terrorist, as an insurrectionist. And this will be a stain on him and his family forever.”
Scaramucci said the Democratic lawmakers have laid out a "devastating case" against the former President for inciting an insurrection with thousands of supporters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"It's very well thought out,” he said. “The prosecution is doing a very good job of laying down the facts, and again, not just the speech that the President made on the 6th of January, but all of the additional action items that he did after the election.”
Scaramucci, who received his J.D. from Harvard Law School before starting a career on Wall Street, said "it's important for people to understand that he is the 'but-for' causation in that tragedy."
"Without him, you don't have the tragedy,” he added. “Moreover, if he just abided to his oath to the Constitution and accepted the election — the free and fair, non-fraudulent election of Joe Biden, now President Biden — you would not have had that tragedy, and you would not have had those five deaths.”
Scaramucci contended that Trump is "the proximate cause" to the insurrection and the violence, and it happened because he "disavowed his oath to the Constitution, by not accepting the free and fair election."
While the Democratic lawmakers have all the "base evidentiary elements" to convict, Scaramucci said ”this is a political trial more than it is based on an objective clear-eyed assessment of fact." He added that Trump has "a good chance of being acquitted."
While Scaramucci, a lifelong Republican, sees an opportunity for the GOP to "save themselves and rebuilt" post-Trump, he believes the likely acquittal will "cause a further destruction of that party." He later slammed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as "cowards" who are "more concerned about their positions of power and ruling" than serving the public."
"[The] American people are on to them,” he said. “And so the good news is that party unless it reforms itself, it will split into two pieces. And it will become a minority party for at least a generation.”
Scaramucci argued that most Americans "know where things stand," and the Republican Party is "only 30% of the registrants."
"I would make the case to your viewers and listeners that Donald Trump is a great unifier, he just happens to be unifying all of us against him,” he said. “And so that will be his legacy, it'll be one that will be on the infamous side of a ledger in American history and American politics.”
Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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