Key Points
- A growing number of Republicans are throwing their support behind Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
- Donald Trump’s former communications adviser Anthony Scaramucci has endorsed Harris in the US November presidential election.
- Former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney and his daughter, ex-congressperson Liz Cheney, are also backing Harris.
Donald Trump’s former top communications adviser Anthony Scaramucci has backed vice-president Kamala Harris to win November’s US presidential election.
Republican contender Donald Trump is “dangerous” and there will be problems for the US and the world if the former president wins, the prominent investment banker has warned.
Scaramucci worked for Trump in 2017 as his communications director
“I’ve endorsed Kamala Harris and I’m working to help her,” he said in while attending the Association of Superannuation Funds investment summit in Australia.
Scaramucci joins several high-profile Republicans who have also recently come forward to endorse the Democratic candidate.
Former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, who held the role from 2001 to 2009,
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said at that time.
Cheney’s former boss, George W Bush, does not plan to make an endorsement or voice how he or his wife Laura will vote in the presidential election in November, Reuters reported on 8 September.
Mike Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president for four years, but has not publicly backed Harris.
Harris praises Republican endorsements as ‘courageous’
Dick Cheney’s endorsement follows that of his daughter, former Republican congressperson Liz Cheney, who announced her support of Harris several days earlier.
Liz Cheney was vice chairwoman of the US congressional investigation into the when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building, to try and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
She was also one of ten House of Representatives Republicans . She lost her House seat in Wyoming after being ousted by a rival in a Republican primary in August 2022.
“I think it’s important for conservatives … to hear a message from a lifelong conservative like Liz Cheney that the danger that Donald Trump represents,” said Scaramucci, who also predicted that more Republicans would give their backing to Harris.
Harris said on Saturday that endorsements from figures like Liz and Dick Cheney were “courageous” for putting the country ahead of their political party.
Trump called Dick Cheney an “irrelevant RINO along with his daughter” in a social media post on Friday, using a term he applies to Republicans not loyal to him, which stands for “Republicans in Name Only.”
Meanwhile, Scaramucci highlighted Trump’s lack of support from senior Republicans.
“I think it’s also important to reference that not one prior president or one prior vice-president stood with Mr Trump at the Republican National Convention,” Scaramucci noted.
He said there was a “new sort of policy called Trumpism, which is isolationist in its behaviour, high tariffs, which, of course, is very anti-conservative” and stood in opposition to the right-wing economic principle of free trade.
“All of these things are against the classic principles of Republicanism that (former US president) Ronald Reagan espoused.”
Harris to build ‘Obama-like coalition’
Scaramucci told SBS that Kamala Harris’ chances would be improved by the influx of new voters and deaths of ageing baby boomers, which he said had changed the political orientation of the US electorate.
He said that over 20 million baby boomers had died since Trump won the presidency in 2016 and, meanwhile, around 40 million gen z Americans had enrolled to vote.
“And so, for this reason, and my belief [is] that she can build a president Obama-like coalition. I believe she will beat Donald Trump.”
US political news website FiveThirtyEight’s analysis shows that Kamala Harris has extended her 0.8 per cent lead over Donald Trump in late July to 3.1 per cent by early September. Source: Supplied / FiveThirtyEight
Harris is slightly ahead of Trump in the opinion polls with a 3.1-point lead at 47.3 per cent. Trump stands at 44.2 per cent, according to US political news website FiveThirtyEight’s latest average of national polls.
Nonetheless, Scaramucci said the result of the election was hard to call.
“It’s going to be a very close election, but I do think that Vice-President Harris will win.”
“I think it’s a combination of factors, but the main factor being that she represents a younger group of Americans, and the electorate has changed substantially since 2016”.
‘No civil war’
Despite the precedent of the 6 January insurrection, Scaramucci has ruled out the risk of civil war in the US if Trump loses this election.
“I’m not worried about a civil war in the United States, but I think the fact that we’re even talking about the spectre of one is reason more, more than enough for the majority of the Americans not devoted Mr Trump.”
“But if he loses, the notion that he’s threatening that or even that he has an enemies list as an example, are reasons why he’s not suitable to be president of the United States again.”
“I do think that the people of the United States, in the event of his loss, are going to be way more prepared for his nonsense than they were in 2021 when the January 6 insurrection took place at his behest.”
“So, he’s a very dangerous guy. It’s a good question, but I’m not worried about it.”
Scaramucci said that Trump — — wants to avoid jail above all other concerns.
Trump ‘wants to wall off America’
Scaramucci also warned it would be “dangerous” for the world if Trump wins the November election because the former president has been
“He wants the wall off America, both literally and physically from the rest of the world, and this sort of isolating strategy would be very bad for the global economy.”
He also cited Trump’s ostensible support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“He carries favour with autocrats, and we’re at a perilous time in world history where we have 5.7 billion people living under some level of autocracy.
after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
In March, Trump told attendees at a rally: “Some people don’t like [Orbán] because he’s too strong. It’s nice to have a strongman running the country.”
With additional reporting from the Reuters news agency.
