July 2025 Q&A - Leaving America, Running for Office, & Books To Read

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1:23Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk to some of the brightest minds about everything surrounding the written word. That's everything. That's from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Before we dive in, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to leave a review. Good or bad, I want to hear from you. I want to hear whether you're enjoying it or where we can improve. And I can take the hits. So let me know. If you don't like something, say it straight. Now let's get into it.

2:07Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Today, we're flipping the script. It's Q &A time, and I got all the questions right here. You guys sent me some great questions. I've done my homework. I've given it some thought. I'm going to give it to you straight. So let's go right into it. These are coming from YouTube, and I love these names, which I always butcher, but this is Duster Gurley, 93, 98. When did you ever believe Donald Trump is impressive in any fashion other than being a complete grifter? He displays no intellectual curiosity, no desire to learn, and operates purely from the position of a narcissist.

2:45Okay, so Duster Gurley, you've just described almost every politician in America, possibly every politician in the world, and who knows about our historical politicians, because I haven't met any of those. But the truth be told, when you're in politics, you're actually searching for the lesser of the two evils. You're not really looking for the genius, if you will. And so the bad news for all of us is it was Jeb Bush or Donald Trump. I chose Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush lost to Donald Trump. And as a loyal Republican, I decided to stay in there and go work for Trump. That was a mistake. I have to own it for the rest of my life.

3:19So saying that I ever believed that he was anything other than what he is. No, that's not the case. And that's something I have to own. And that's one of the weird things, one of the worst things about going into politics. If you go into politics and you are a candidate for a political office, you are going to lie. I don't want to mention some of my friends that have gone into politics who were great guys, business executives, and then they get to the podium and they start telling lies. And I'm looking at them like, oh my God, but that's what happens. And one last point, historical reference, Dwight Eisenhower, considered one of our great presidents, great military leader.

3:50When asked, he was 79 years old. He was at his house in Gettysburg and Walter Cronkite went to interview him. He had left the presidency. Now it turned it over to John Kennedy. I said, a general, and again, he wanted to be referred to as general, not president. When he left, he said, general, what did you like or hate about the job? He said, well, I hated the line. And so, yeah, I'm sorry about all that. It does suck, but that's the true answer. So let's go to the next one. What are your favorite tunes to play on those guitars in your office? Do you play songs or noodle around? And are you blasting the office on amp or keeping your volume at a reasonable level?

4:24This is Dondeke. So I have one phenomenal musician in my family, which is my daughter, Amelia. She can play those guitars and she can sing beautifully and has been on stage with people like Andrea Bucelli, but not me. I am tone deaf, never played a musical instrument. Those guitars were gifts to me from Maroon 5 and Lenny Kravitz and John Fogarty, all of which have played at our conferences. And so I like displaying them because they're good discussion pieces as evidenced by the fact that you brought this up in our Q &A. So yeah, no, I'm tone deaf, can't sing. And when I start singing, there's not one person in Scaramucci family that doesn't tell me to shut the you know what up.

5:02All right. Number three, is there a tipping point where you would leave the U.S. for the sake of your family's safety. This is Elray 8E876. So I'm assuming that's August 8th, 1976, Elray. So happy birthday. That's coming up. I guess the answer to that is no. I'm an American and I'm a New Yorker and I'm not leaving. Okay. And we'll stay as long as we can. And hopefully we can get these people out of office and we get more people in office that want to generally do the right thing. So I'm never leaving. Number four, have you considered running for office? I have considered running for office. This is from Beverly Malloy.

5:37But my wife believes in castration. And you probably don't know this about me, Beverly, or maybe you do. I'm running for re-election in my marriage. And I just think it's really hard on kids. And then go back to question number one. If you go into political life, you end up becoming a huge liar. And so, no, I haven't really overly considered running for office, but maybe someday. You never know. Is America still the land of opportunity or should a young person consider living elsewhere? What a great question. I think America is still the land of opportunity, but I will say this to you guys that America has made it more difficult for people like me in the sense that where I grew up from, I have found that more people that grow up in what I would call the working class areas of America, the blue collar, middle class, if you will, have a harder time with class mobility today.

6:26But I do think it's still a great land of opportunity. And there's some things we can do to change that. And America is this really wonderful, adaptive place. So I'm going to say it's still a land of opportunity, a little tougher today than it was 40 or 50 years ago. But I still think there's no place like America. Most people that live from around the world in indigent circumstances want to come to America and give it a shot. So I still think that that's true today. Number six, when looking at the threats to democracy posed by the Trump administration, how much do you believe in the fears over such threats?

6:59And are they justified or overblown? Or put it in other words, how likely will it be for democracy as we know it to survive beyond the Trump administration? So the democracy is under tremendous stress. And by the way, this is not necessarily Trump's fault. The democracy has been under stress for the last 30 or so years. And what the Democrats and the Republicans basically did is they joined forces to tighten their duopoly on the democracy. And then they've done something called gerrymandering. And just put simply, they're able to go and redistrict their congressional districts in a way that favor them.

7:35So they can screen their enemies out of the district and they can bring their friends into the district so that they can stay in office. And so that's really harmed the democracy. So there's a lot of things that are going on that have harmed the democracy prior to Trump. Trump is a manifestation of this. I do believe that if you had another candidate, chump or rump, they would be doing many of the same things that Trump is doing. There's a large group of people in our country, unfortunately, that don't believe in democracy anymore. And this is a terrible thing. And I'm just going to bring up a quick story here before we go to another question.

8:05If you get a chance, please go watch the movie The Remains of the Day. It's a 30-plus-year-old movie. Anthony Hopkins won the Academy Award for this movie. There's just a great scene in the movie. He's a very uptight butler. He's serving the lord of the manor, and he's doing it in a very proper way. But he's an uneducated man, and one of the aristocrats in the Brandy snifting room looks at him and starts asking him these complicated questions about politics. and Hopkins, as the butler, looks at him and says, I don't know, sir. And as he leaves the room, the man looks over at the owner of the manor and he says, well, why don't we give these guys the vote if they don't know anything?

8:42And yet the same time that they're doing this contemporaneous, they're bringing the Nazis into the front door to have a dinner with them. So there's an implication in the story that the smart, quote unquote, smart aristocrats, they don't know any better than the people that don't know anything, right? And the idea is that we need each other. There's sometimes a collective wisdom in crowds that we need each other to sort of modify and mollify some of the extreme behaviors out there. So I'm a big believer in the democracy. The democracy needs to be reset. I do think it will survive Trump because of the courts and because of very strong lobbying that goes on here.

9:17So the democracy needs to be revitalized, probably need amendments to our Constitution. We need a group of secular leaders to come in and analyze it and say, OK, here's how we can strengthen the democracy. and stop the nonsense of thinking that one group of people is better than another group of people because of wealth or education. Churchill said it better than anybody. Democracy is the worst form of government until we compare it to all the other forms of government. He was absolutely right about that. Number seven, what do you do when you go into a bookstore? How do you begin finding a book to read?

9:49This is from at Ian Soleil. So this is a phenomenal question. And so the first thing I do is, and this is the first thing I do with a newspaper, by the way, I like looking at the front page of a newspaper. And hold on, I have one right here. To me, the front page of the newspaper tells the story because somebody had to curate this front page. They had to make a decision of what was the most important things to have happen during the day. So for me, first thing I do when I'm in a bookstore is what is in the bookstore that's in the front of the store. What what do the curators of that bookstore think is important?

10:25So I would look for the nonfiction, new nonfiction, and the new fiction. And I probably then will go to the history section and spend some time there. And then, last but not least, I go over to the bookstore owner or the manager of the store, and I say, what are other people buying? And I always ask for something off the grid. As an example, a couple of years back, I asked for a, I said, give me something that's fiction other people are buying that I wouldn't necessarily buy. And I obviously knew the bookstore owner and they gave me Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, who I have interviewed and she's a brilliant person.

11:01She got the Barnes and Noble book of the year. Had I not done that, I would have never been able to have read that book. The book became a Apple TV stream, a phenomenal book. And I would recommend to you that you don't just stick to your own knitting in a bookstore, but you ask people what other people are reading because that's how I always find something super new. And I'm reading this book right now called The Wealth Ladder by Nick Mangiuli. And I found that by somebody handing me the book. And so, so far, this is a terrific book on wealth. Lots of common sense. Wouldn't have found it on my own.

11:33So ask people for help in a bookstore. Number eight, do you think agentic AI will hollow out white collar jobs and to what level and how fast do you think that will happen? And is there a way to agent proof yourself to protect your future earnings? Or are we all destined to subsist on UBI? This is from Dave Kadoff. So again, these are phenomenal questions. I think we're a ways away from being super threatened by AI. I think that there's a lot of processes that will happen that will benefit from. There's a lot of computer programming that AI is capable of, and there's a lot of writing that AI is capable of.

12:10But ultimately, I think we're going to find ourselves in an AI-enabled world as opposed to an AI takeover. Now that may not be true 50 years from now, but I'm really talking about the next 10 or 20 years. And I would just ask people to spend some time learning about AI and spend some time working with AI. I have subscriptions now to ChadGBT and to SuperGrock. Just subscribe to Cloud, C-L-A-U-D-E. And I think that Cloud is probably the best on the writing side if you're a writer, pretty good at forming sentences in your own style. But I would use AI right now as a tool for learning more than a two for analytics and doing, because you want to keep your brain sharp basically.

12:52But I think we're 10, possibly even 15 years away from this being a super threat. But I do think if it's handled properly, we're going to enter a new age of abundance, probably end up with a three or four day work week down from five. Okay. Let's go to these LinkedIn questions. And guys, thank you for sending them. You oftentimes reflected on your own upbringing as a source of inspiration, determination, and resilience because you were taught to appreciate the sacrifice made by your parents to maintain a decent standard of living for the family. All of that is true. However, many come to finance as we know it from a world of privilege and acquire a certain sense of entitlement.

13:27This may be counterintuitive, but how would you suggest that people who are not brought up grounded acquire and maintain a sense of perspective to live lives and focus on the needs of others? This is Larry McGinty. I mean, this is, again, these are great questions, but I got bad news for Larry. Okay, life is unfair. And Larry, you could grow up like me and become very, very rich and be a complete asshole. You can grow up like me and become very, very rich and be grounded and recognize that you're no better or worse than any other human being. And believe it or not, there are rich people that were born into excessive privilege that are incredibly kind and incredibly endearing people that have a lot of empathy.

14:06Unfortunately, I don't think there's any way to teach it. Sometimes when people get smashed to the ground, they can become more psychologically minded when they pick themselves back up. But generally, if you're an asshole without money, you become a super asshole when you have money. And if you're a good person without money, guess what? I think it's a force multiplier. When you end up having money, you end up doing good things with it. So not a great answer, sir. I do think I benefited from having hardworking people in my family give me some respect for the value of a dollar, but also give me some respect for the notion that we didn't have a lot, but it was important to work, which is why even though I've done pretty well as a person here in America, I still work my ass off, if you will, and will continue to do so for many years after normal retirement.

14:54But this is a great question. How do you think the war with Russia and the Ukraine will end? This is George Page. It won't end. It won't end until 2028, possibly longer. I think it's going to just be a stalemated situation. The Europeans, with the help of the Pentagon, are going to continue to supply stalemate-like armament for this war. Could have ended, but we don't have a leader. The American president is obviously kowtowing to Vladimir Putin. I believe that Putin has compromise on him. He's scared shit of Putin. And so this thing will not end, at least until, well, this presidential term is over.

15:28Number five, has your anti-Trump political stance caused redemptions for Skybridge? Yes. Yes, it has, PK Semler. My anti-Trump political stance has caused redemptions. You know what else caused redemptions? My pro-Trump political stance. And the immortal words of my son, A.J. Scaramucci, Dad, you're killing me, killing my networking. The Republicans hate you because you left Trump. The Democrats hate you because you were once with Trump. You're just killing my networking opportunities. My son is absolutely right. But I am in search of the truth, PK. and people can leave if they want. Take a look at the performance.

16:01Take a careful look at our performance over the last five years before you leave. I think you'd be stupid to leave, but that's just my opinion. Okay. When building both a personal brand and a business brand, how do you strike the balance between staying authentic to who you are and still positioning each brand strategically to achieve your business goals? Have you found that there are times when the two conflict? And if so, how do you navigate that tension? This is from Marvin Teibout. This This is great. Again, these are great questions. Marvin, I've been absolutely terrible at this, by the way.

16:32So I wouldn't go by me. I am somebody that likes to share my opinion. I like being a public person and my opinions piss people off. Michael Jordan had one of the best lines ever. They wanted him to champion some civil rights causes and they wanted him to be positioned as liberal. And Jordan looked at everybody and said, hey, look, the Republicans buy sneakers too. Leave me alone. I'm not a politician. I want to stay out of politics. Most smart business leaders do that. I have taken the position that the country needs help and the country needs some level of reform and healing. I don't want to be a rich guy living in a bob-wired security perimetered McMansion while my fellow neighbors are suffering and struggling.

17:10So this is why I like speaking out and like trying to find ways to help people. But this has put me in a bad position business-wise. If I was a better brand manager and a better marketer strategically, I'd keep my mouth shut and just focus on my business. I'd probably be richer, but I don't think I'd be having as much fun. Let's keep going. What are your reading recommendations to undergrads looking to pursue a career like yours? Sebastian Montezuma de la Barrera. Okay, so Sebastian, a couple things. I would read three books, One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Grand, and I would read Lawrence Cunningham's The Essays and Writings of Warren Buffett, which are a compilation of what Mr.

17:50Buffett has written over the last 50 year. Start with those three things. And then of course, pick up the Wall Street Journal, try to read that every day. I think you'd be well ahead of most people. What is the best and worst career advice you've ever received? Saren Insafe. So the best career advice that I've received, which I didn't understand at the time, was from my first boss who told me that I needed, quote unquote, a tincture of time, which basically meant that I needed to be patient, that I was too restless in wanting my career to unfold more quickly than it could actually unfold. In fact, to quote him, it takes 11 months to make an elephant.

18:26You can't instantaneously make an elephant. It takes my months to make a human baby, but it takes 11 months to make an elephant baby. Calm yourself down. That was the best advice. The worst advice was when I talked to people after I got fired from the White House, there were some crisis PR people that told me that, oh my God, you blew yourself up and you should go buy yourself a villa in Tuscany and disappear for five years. Why don't you come back to the United States sometime in 2022. That's not great advice, by the way. So anyway, I did not do that. So that was the worst advice I got. Number nine, your thoughts on long-term risk on the US economy, the dollar standing in 10 years from now, Jacob Osterberg.

19:04The dollar is still going to reign supreme 10 years from now, primarily because it's the strongest of the weakest fiat currencies. But Bitcoin will be worth a lot. Gold will be worth a lot in dollar denomination, the dollar will be less valuable in terms of its purchasing power because unfortunately the American politicians don't want to face the music with their deficit spending. And so what they're doing is they're using inflation as a form of regressive taxation. So again, never forget this. Deficit spending is unfunded tax liability. You're going to end up paying it one way or the other. You can either tax the people and pay it like they do in Norway, or you can not tax the people and you could take their wealth from them through inflating and monetizing the debt through gross inflation.

19:48But the dollar will be, I think, still reigning supreme, but it will be a weaker asset, which is why you should own some Bitcoin and gold and some other protective assets. Your memory and ability to recall things you've read is second to none. Is this just good genes or do you do something to keep your memory strong, manage stress, et cetera? Dmitry Balasov. So great question. So I do do something. I'll teach you a trick that I do. Let's talk about this book. Talk about Nick's book for a second. When I am done with this book, I will take out a white piece of paper, like a Xerox piece of paper or printer paper.

20:21And with a pen, I will write five things that I've learned from this book. And I may even put the page numbers. And then I open up the book and I put it in the front of the book. So now when I'm trying to draw upon this in a podcast or something, I'll have it on my shelf. I'll say, ah, I remember reading something in Nick's book about that. What the hell was it? I'll pull it off the shelf. I'll open the book. And there are five things that I learned from the book with the page numbers and the annotation. So it's a little trick that I use to make people think that I have a better memory than I actually do.

20:53All right, let's keep going. These are great questions. What is your favorite political history book on the U.S. that you recommend? And this is from John Hearn. So to me, there are two books, actually, if you don't mind. One is called These Truths by Jill Lepore. She was a Tufts University historian, professor of history. Phenomenal book on the reality of American history as opposed to the hagiography of American history. And then the second book, which I really do try to read at least once every five years, is In the Time of the Americans by David Fromkin, which basically laid out for us what the American government did and great American leadership did in the end of the Second World War to build probably the architecture of the greatest peace and prosperity in global history, which unfortunately is now coming to an end.

21:42But anyway, those two books I think are phenomenal. You love Superman and superheroes. What superhero power do you wish you had and what would you do with it? John Kelly. Okay, well, number one, I would not want to be able to see the future. I think that would take a lot of fun out of life. So we'll leave that one off. clairvoyance is not something I would like. I guess the superhero strength that I would like would be able to read people better than I currently have. So I would want super empathy is what I would want. I think that's something that I probably lacked a little bit of as a younger person.

22:16I think getting fired and blown out of the White House is probably maybe more psychologically minded and more empathetic, but I would like to have that super strength, if you will. 13. What's an achievement of yours that was monumental in shaping your career and driving you to the next level? This is William S. I'm going to tell you exactly what it was, William S., February 6th, 1986. For those of you listening at home, that was Ronald Reagan's 75th birthday, February 6th, 1986. That was the day that I got accepted to the Harvard Law School. Of course, my mom thought it was Harvard Law School.

22:49She didn't know any better, but it was a big moment because Harvard was a different perception 40 years ago. And Harvard to me was a ticket to the white collar communities. It was an opportunity for me to get a really good white collar job, having grown up in a family of people that never had a white collar job. And so that was the big achievement. All right. So that's a wrap for right now for these questions. Guys, thank you very much. This is the Q &A session for Open Book. Please continue to send questions and we'll do more of these people want them, we'll keep doing them. Thank you again.

23:48hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.