Advice to Democrats Today with Charles Gasparino

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1:33Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know.

2:08Anyways, let's get to it.

2:17My guest today, Charles Gasparino, is the only person that I still love, even though he often writes bad things about me. Sorry, Charlie, I had to get that in there. You are a pain in the ass, by the way, and I want that on the record. I want people to know. But your new book, Charlie's new book, Go Woke, Go Broke, is an important read, particularly for those on the left. This is a conversation about embracing inclusivity whilst finding a balance. Charlie and I love to disagree, of course, so there's some of that in there too. Let's go to the conversation.

2:55joining us now on open book is a best-selling author veteran financial journalist charles gasparino the title of the book is go woke go broke and by the way i actually agree with a lot of what you're saying in this book and i enjoyed reading it and i'm actually proud to call you a friend, Charlie Gasparino, even though you do take shots at me in the press. And I will just, I just want to point out that that's what true Italians do to each other. Okay. If you're not in a ball breaking exercise, what's the sense of living? That's my personal view. Yeah. Um, listen, I, I call him as I see him. I, I think you're a good guy and I like you.

3:32I don't, uh, I don't like all your politics, but, um, you know, um, you don't have to like all my, when, when, when Trump goes after your wife, we'll see what you act like when Trump goes after your wife because you're not you're not an italian from the neighborhood so we'll we'll see what charlie gasparino does when trump goes after his wife but that's you know trump goes after me right i mean he called me well that's fine going no no no no no no no no going after you is fine going after me is fine you don't go after civilians okay you know that i i don't talk about people's wives i actually right adore your wife so she's a very nice person never bothered anybody.

4:10Right. Exactly. And she loves you. All right. Let's, let's go to the book. Okay. I mean, this is this, this is why you got to have a few Italians on the podcast. Okay. All right. Let's go to the book. Okay. So you wrote a great book. I mean, this book, I would tell every Democrat that I know from the top to the bottom, including AOC, please read the book. And when you're done reading the book, tell me what you guys are doing right and wrong, because if they lose this election, okay, and this is being recorded about five or six days before the election. If they lose the election, betting markets are for Trump.

4:41If they lose the election, what you're saying in this book, in my opinion, is the reason why they will have lost the election. They may not lose the election. Who the hell knows? But explain why you decided to write this. And first of all, explain the premise of Go Woke, Go Broke, and then explain why you decided to write this. And then we'll talk a little more about what's in the book. I should premise this as this is not like some sort of a pro Trump book, just so you know, even though Trump is always in the background of everything we wrote, I'm fairly critical of him and how he comported himself as president, which I will continue to do, even though, you know, I guess you could say net net, I'm kind of leaning towards him as opposed to the other side.

5:23And he did call me a never Trump recently because ike was critical of his spending and things of that nature but be that as i say and i actually know the guy a long time i know him longer than you and i remember telling you it's not going to end well with you and him i told you that and i remember you telling me i was not and i liked the guy and i liked the guy but i was like i was always like just be careful here but be that as it may let's get to the book yeah book you know okay so this is how i kind of stumbled on this in a weird way. I was covering the regional banking crisis, Silicon Valley Bank, and I had an agent that came to me and said, you know, you should really write about all these banks that are blowing up.

6:03But this is in early 2023. There's a, you know, you're a financial writer, but this is even better. I mean, this Silicon Valley Bank, if you look at who ran it, while they were mismanaging their balance sheet or, you know, looked like they were mismanaging the balance sheet, they clearly didn't understand their asset and liability matches. They were engage in all this weird stuff like DEI training. And, you know, they were really obsessed with ESG and all these sort of extraneous things, this woke stuff. And, you know, we can maybe write a book about how wokeness on a corporate level, which people just started looking at, you know, destroyed a bank.

6:39And I said, OK, so I started looking at it. And then a confluence of things happened. I mean, you know, you had Disney blowing up, getting into a big fight with Ron DeSantis It was the sex education for toddlers law. Bob Chapek using shareholder money to oppose that. And, you know, like a sort of outrage and a backlash to that. You had the Dylan Mulvaney thing, this crazy thing where a trans woman, you know, was drinking a beer half naked in a bubble bath to try to appeal to God knows what customer base. But they did it. Target with their flamboyant displays of during Pride Month, ESG and Larry Fink.

7:18Larry Fink's a guy I like a lot, but, you know, he got embroiled in this mess with ESG, became a sort of lightning rod for the conservative movement. And it all coalesced at once. And I said, there's a bigger book here. And what I wanted to do with this is say, you know, why did corporate America do something kind of like absurd. I mean, if you think about it, within the bounds of ethics and legality, I'm not saying that, you know, that you should maximize profits by dumping, you know, toxins in the Hudson River. But you're a CEO, you should be worried about making money, not being, you know, not being a sort of helper of the progressive movement on all these various cultural issues.

7:59These things should be hashed out in Congress, you know, in a public debate, during a presidential election, at the kitchen table, what your kids, what you want to teach your kids. It should not be Jamie Dimon weighing in on this stuff and Bob Chapek. And what I wanted to do is a journalistic account of this. I spent a lot of time with Larry Fink, again, someone I respect and like, trying to get his side of the story. I spent a lot of time with the people at Budweiser. It's a company called InBev, A.B. InBev, which owns Anheuser-Busch now. The old Bush family doesn't own it. I spent some time with their representatives trying to understand how this whole thing, where how did Dylan Mulvaney get it?

8:40It went from the Clydesdales, literally one of the most poignant commercials I've ever seen was after 9-11. The Clydesdales walk up and look at the Twin Towers being missing and take a knee. And if you look at this iconic commercial, Budweiser commercial, you can't help but get shivers. You went from that to Dylan Mulvaney giggling in a bubble bath. And, you know, how did this happen? And that's kind of what the book tried to do. I tried to do it like journalistically, Anthony. I tried to do it as somebody who is I'm not an asshole when it comes to this stuff. I don't hate trans people. A friend of mine is essentially living with a trans woman.

9:21I think, you know, adults should be what they want to be. I'm a libertarian when it comes to all this stuff. I don't think companies should be part of this coercive business trying to change the culture of the country. That's my POV. Within the bounds of that POV, I did, I tried to be journalistic here. And you can see, I don't pull punches on anybody, anybody. I read the book and I'm going to summarize for you my thoughts. I want you to say I got this right. I got this wrong. OK. So the premise of the book is that we have social and cultural disagreement in the society and certain parts of the society want their culture imposed on the entire society.

10:04So as an example, they want my seven-year-old that's in the second grade to be told that if he's transgender, you're okay telling the teacher, not telling the parent. And many people in the country, and by the way, including myself, I actually don't want that. And I'm all for transgenderism, and I'm all for sexual orientations that are different from mine. I have no problem with that. But I don't want that imposed on me culturally. I agree. And so a result of which, when you start to do that, you start to lose fans, you start to lose consumers, you start to lose what I would say is probably the center of America.

10:39Is that the premise of the book? It is, but it goes beyond that. It raises the question why companies got involved in this, why public companies. The last place you would think this culture war would be fought is the boardroom of Bank of America or J.P. Morgan or Larry Fink's BlackRock. Why did they go there? what were, or Target, or Budweiser, Budweiser in particular, right? Why did they go there? What were the forces that forced them to go there? And, you know, listen, Anthony, this is not a textbook, as you know. This is, I use anecdotes. I try to write it narratively. I try to make it lively.

11:14The stuff with Larry Fink is awesome because let me tell you what I love about Larry Fink, okay? If Larry Fink gets something wrong, Charles, he's got something wrong and he switches topics. I was with Larry Fink in the lobby. I'm not making this up. Four Seasons Hotel in Abu Dhabi, he walked over to me, you know, Bitcoin sucks. I don't know why you own Bitcoin. And I own a lot of Circle. I own a lot of USD. I said, well, I'm sorry. I just don't think it sucks. Three years later, he's like, okay, you know what? I got that wrong. And I'm launching a Bitcoin ETF. I think the guy, I love the guy for that reason.

11:45I wish more Americans, if they get something wrong, just say, look, I got it wrong. I'm changing course. Yeah. And when he changed course with Bitcoin, he changed course away from woke. It was part of that transformation where he realized he went way too far proselytizing too much on ESG, environmental, social, government investing. He tried to change attitudes. And I talked to him in the book. He says, listen, I probably should have focused not so much on the S and the G, which involves very controversial stuff like diversity, equity and inclusion, which is essentially quotas. A lot of the sort of far left wokeism.

12:20It should have focused on this, The E part, which is, you know, is there a transformational economy around something known as zero? You know, not a coercive economy, but a transformation, something like the Internet around this whole notion of net zero. Like, can you and I listen, I as as a journalist, I can see where there could. Right. I mean, is there something transformational about alternative power, ways to generate power? Because we're going to need as much power as we can if we're going to, you know, you know, do AI and Bitcoin mine. you know, Larry's very much open to advances in nuclear power, which we need.

12:57It's clean. I mean, that's the sort of stuff I think he recognizes he should have focused on and not in a sort of nanny state way. And I give him credit in the book for going that way. The last quarter of the book is about how woke is breaking. You know, I use Larry Fink as an example of that, but many others. I mean, listen, Bob Chapek gets blown out of Disney. Bob Iger now is back running it. You know, know, he's the guy that brought wokeness to Disney is now doing a 180 on wokeness. When was the last time you saw, you know, in a, in a cartoon, Disney cartoon for, for children, you know, two same sex characters kissing.

13:31Now, again, I don't pay, you know, here's a weird thing about this. I, I don't pay attention. If I was walking in a target and I saw rows upon rows of pride displays, I would just like walk by there, go to the place that I want to buy my sneakers or wherever and go home. I wouldn't care. But, you know, I'm not a parent with two kids and Target's audiences. It's Target group that it markets to is very middle class, you know, mom with two kids in the stroller. And, you know, you have to explain what a tough, friendly baby suit is to little Johnny. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's not me.

14:03And that's that's the revulsion I had. The other thing is, Anthony, what really kind of stoked me on this thing was how billionaire CEOs were literally sort of chastising middle America in so many ways, and particularly after George Floyd. I mean, I get into that. I quoted Brian Moynihan directly, Jamie Dimon directly, David Solomon. I mean, let's be really clear here. A cop in Minneapolis killed somebody, George Floyd, who was in a convenience store, you know, doing something illegal. He was trying to pass a check. He did not deserve the death penalty. OK, did not. You know, we can debate all day whether whether Derek Chauvin and company used excessive force.

14:46I don't I wouldn't have handled it that way, but I'm not a cop. OK, I'm just telling you that that single instance, which occurred when the country was locked down and losing its mind, caused some of the biggest riots and social disturbances ever. We had we had mayhem in the streets. We had the left trying to frame that as evidence that the entire nation is systemically racist, that there's something wrong with a nation that is so much less systemically racist than any other nation that it's, I'm not saying there's zero problems here, but, you know, just because of that one instance. And then you just see Jamie Dimon, oh, we have all these problems.

15:24I need to do$30 billion for, you know, racial equity and Brian Moynihan and this one and David Solomon, when he's not spinning records in the Hamptons is lecturing, you know, the construction workers about their white privilege. And I thought that was the most disgusting display of virtue signaling I ever saw in my life. And I'm glad I documented it in this book. Okay. So, I mean, I, you know, this is where you and I have a violent agreement, Charles, violent agreement. So, so let me, let me put my strategist hat on for a second. And I want you to be a Democratic strategist and you're in the boardroom and you have all the powers that be in the Democratic Party in the room.

16:10And you wanted to help them. I'm not saying you want to, Charlie Gasparino, but I want you to role play with me. What would you say from your research for this book to them? And what how would you try to resonate with them? What would you try to do? Well, I think they wouldn't need my advice, because if you notice how Kamala Harris is handling her campaign. You know, back in 2019, she was the second coming of Bernie Sanders. Now, if you take her at her word, and you know, you might take her at her word, I wouldn't. She's like this moderate, you know, Bill Clinton-esque Democrat. She's not woke.

16:47She once said, we need to be more woke. She once opined about the great need for diversity, equity, and inclusion. And, you know, So, you know, you know, it's and it was a little grating to see somebody like Kamala Harris talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, how we should divide up the pie based on intersectionality when, you know, she's a woman of color, but came from a very privileged background. You know, Ph.D. father, biologist mom. I mean, my old man worked three jobs, you know, and you're telling me that, you know, I have white privilege. I mean, you know, I don't know. He's a construction worker, bartender.

17:21That's some privilege there. Right. Got me my first job, by the way, at the Silver Moon restaurant in Yorktown Heights washing dishes. I remember the Silver Moon. You were washing the dishes. That's the reason why I got tomein poisoning? You were washing the dishes? I poisoned your food. But, you know, that's what I'm saying. I mean, this is so ridiculous on its face. But she's not engaging in that right now. And that's the reason. And if she pulls this out, one of the reasons why is because she didn't go there. and she didn't embrace wokeness. She sees it's a loser. By the way, wokeness might sell.

17:58And by the way, part of the book, as you know, I interviewed Mark Cuban. I mean, we had a long conversation which he explains why wokeness sells. And I was like, well, you know, Mark, she goes, well, look at these big companies. You're looking, Apple's woke. And, you know, look how much profit. So I said, Mark, you know, when I download Joe Rogan on my Spotify and my iPhone, I'm essentially virtue signaling, you're saying. That's a political statement, pro-woke. And, you know, he couldn't really answer that question. Yeah, well, he's making a different point. I read that part of the book, and I wanted to ask you about that.

18:32So he's trying to say something different, which I would like you to try to intersect your thoughts and his. I think what he's trying to say in my conversations with him is that we want to be inclusive. You know, ultimately, I mean, you agree with this, the way you and I grew up, we don't have, we don't see color, you and me. We want to be inclusive. We're trying to figure out a way to add to diversity in employment, add to diversity in a business. And I know if I hire somebody, regardless of race, color, creed, sexual orientation, I've got a bigger pool of talent that I'm drawing from. I think that's what he's trying to say.

19:03But it doesn't translate. And so I'm wondering why it's not translating, I guess, is my question to you. Because in the land of the woke, intersectionality trumps your economic disadvantage, particularly if you're a white guy. And it's patently unfair. Right now, it's illegal based on what the Supreme Court ruled. And it's stupid. I mean, the fact of the matter is, you know, we're way beyond, like, saying a PhD from Harvard who is black. You know, we're going to ignore him. And, you know, he can figure out differential equations in his sleep. but let's hire some some stupid white guy i mean that's not what that doesn't happen on any sort of competitive business that i've ever seen and i've been covering competitive businesses now for 35 years and you know it and i know it um the diversity that he seeks is racial bean counting which is bad for the country and um and it's bad for business and it's irrational and it doesn't work and it's so in the scenes of incredible amounts of divisiveness and it's allowing people If you think Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy, it's electing him as president.

20:14And, you know, if you go there, this is what you're going to get. And and they went there, meaning the Democratic Party, people like Cuban. And now they're getting what they may literally have on Tuesday. They may have their worst nightmare as president, whether he is going to be a nightmare or not. We can debate. I don't think so. I think there's going to be some smart people around him. I think he's going to be he's going to be OK on certain issues and certain issues. It's not so okay. He's going to be, but remember what happened. This is a backlash to what the sort of absurdity that Cuban was pushing on people.

20:46Listen, if you're Ben and Jerry's, you can virtue signal all you want. It's a niche products of ice cream. If you're Target and you're going to try to change the cultural values of your core audience, which by the way is multicultural middle class, and it may skew heavily working class white, but it's still multicultural. they don't have those same values and you proselytizing to them is is is ridiculous it's not your job your job is to enhance shareholder value not to be part of the cultural wars and if you go there you face the backlash which brian cornell as you saw in my book did and they still are budweiser is still the number three beer i believe or bud light it's not number one anymore um disney stock hasn't moved in 10 years look up a chart it might even be down over the past 10 years.

21:35That's pretty amazing for a company stock that was the darling of the markets for many years. You know, also, I wanted to point out, Anthony, in the book, you know, this is a much more difficult story to tell than just woke is bad, unwoke is good. You know, I can see the notion of diversity, why it's good. Okay, not at the heavy hand of a gun, but diversity, openness to this, you know, trans people, our friends, our neighbors, our employees, they deserve every right that we have don't care what they they and they deserve it by the way not just deserve it law requires it just remember that that said the sort of cultural marxism of of corporate america and at times particularly after 2020 was almost marxist it was revolting and we and you you somebody had to call them out on it i'm i know vivek did a book about it it was you know i read it.

22:25It was much more theoretical. This book is really, you know, this is anecdotes. I'm sending your book to lots of people. Okay. Senator Gillibrand, I'm sending it to Schumer. They won't read it probably, Charlie, but they should read it because, you know, there's something in the book that I think resonates. They can embrace inclusivity without jamming it down somebody's throat to the point where they turn them into a Trump supporter. Do you understand what I'm saying? I've got people that say to me, hey, I understand your issues with Donald Trump, but I don't want this stuff jammed down my throat and he's not going to jam it down my throat.

23:01And that's it. It's weird because you and I study the economy. The economy is not doing that badly. Certain sectors of the economy are hurting. I'm not saying they're not. I understand. Lower and middle income people are hurting because of what happened with the inflation, but it's improving. And a lot of that was systemic to COVID. If you live through the 70s, which I'm a little older than you, I have. I was there with you, buddy. OK, so, you know, economies improve during times of inflation and high prices. But, you know, you don't you have to work harder to keep up. And I think there's two economies here.

23:35You know, I have we have a mutual friend, Max Myers at CNBC. And he would we'd be at Elio's restaurant and he'd be like, how can you say the economy is horrible? Look at this place. Look, look, it's packed. People are buying$1 ,000 bottles of wine, which is true. And by the way, Ilios is a great place. I love it. It's a great vibe. And people are spending there. I said, yeah, this is the speculator economy. If you know even the basics of economics, you know what happened in Argentina and places where they had rampant inflation, you can speculate. You can hedge the inflation through speculation in the markets.

24:10If you're rich, if you're poor, you can't. Or working class, you can't. It's tougher. And I think that was that's another thing that wokeness sort of blinded the media to what was transitory inflation, which really wasn't. And, you know, there's a great scene in the book, I think, with James Gorman, who I think is one of the smartest guys on Wall Street. He was the head of Morgan Stanley, which, you know, Morgan Stanley's a broker. Yeah, he's now the chairman of the board of Disney. He's going to pick Bob Iger's successor. And I was having dinner with James and he said, you know, and this was early on.