Trump's 'full-on racism' will 'go way uglier' as election nears: Ex-White House official

On MSNBC Saturday, former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci warned that President Donald Trump's toxicity on race relations will only worsen in the run-up to the election in November.

"You were in charge, for a brief time, but for communications from this White House, and it does seem that Trump is going there because that's where he thinks he has to go," said host Joy Reid. "92 percent of African-Americans, not surprisingly, disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of race. But even 57 percent of white Americans disapprove of his handling of race relations. There's a lot of white marchers out there, marching for Black Lives Matter. Has he miscalculated and misread white people, at least the majority of them, in this moment?"

"Well, I hope he has, but let's go back to that ad that you just showed about 'defunding the police,'" said Scaramucci. "He's trying to let people know that defunding the police means elimination of the police, which we all know clearly it doesn't mean. The strategy, Joy, he got 62 percent of the white vote last time. He needs 7 percent or 8 percent increase in voter participation from his base to be competitive in those swing states. So he has to go full-on racism, full-on racist, nativist tropes, and you'll see more ugly, disparaging ads like that."

"There's nothing unifying coming — it's going to get darker and darker," he added. "What he's hoping to do is it will compel people to be fearful and vote for him because he will be the, quote-unquote, 'protector' in the cultural war that's going on in this society. We have to convince those people he's just going to make things worse and they can live a great life under a Biden administration, he is a false prophet and false promise. That is the move. He will go way uglier than he is right now."

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