Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Are We At War with Ourselves? With General H.R. McMaster

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

This week, Anthony is joined by General H.R. McMaster, the 25th United States National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018, to discuss his new book At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House.  General H.R. McMaster takes us through his military career, leadership philosophy, and experiences during his time in the Trump administration. He reflects on the challenges of working with President Trump, and the complexities of foreign policy. McMaster also addresses controversial decisions made during his tenure, including the handling of relations with Russia and Ukraine, and shares insights on NATO and the future of American politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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from authors and historians to figures and 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 podcast, 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. Anyways, let's get to it. I'm honored to have General H.R. McMaster join me on today's episode, someone I have been proud to call a friend since our time working together in the Trump administration.

From his incredible military career to the challenges of advising President Trump, navigating shifts in foreign policy, and the hope for a renewed unity in America. There is so much to learn from this conversation. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Astroy's great podcast in the back room. Every episode is a fun, incredibly honest take on our society and the political situation, along with some brilliant guests. I've been honored to join Andy on the show, and you know anywhere that accepts me with no filter deserves a shout-out. Okay, so joining us now on Open Book, a dear friend and so may have the pleasure of interviewing before, is General H.R. McMass, or the title of the book, is a at war with ourselves. What a great title, HR, my tour of duty in the Trump White House. And so this is,

of course, after 34 years of service in the U.S. military. And I want to start there, if you don't mind. I was in London and somebody said to me, I listened to Open Book. I said, oh, thank you. Are you going to interview General McMaster? I said, geez, I hope so. I'm going to use my Italian guilt on him. He said, well, make sure you bring up, there's a very famous tank battle. He was involved in. And he in Iraq, and he was a phenomenal tank commander. So I want to start there. Tell us about your military career. Tell us how you got involved with tanks. And let's start there. Then we'll go to the academic. You write about the Long Island Anthony in your book and the Harvard Anthony. Let's go to the military HR first before we get to the academic HR. Yeah. Hey, Anthony, thanks for having me, man.

I mean, I always enjoy talking with you about anything. And thanks for the privilege to talk with you about the book. And, you know, I always wanted to be in the Army, you know, and I was just, you know, always determined to go to West Point. I graduate from West Point. I was not the, I was not the ideal cadet, you know, at West Point. I was sometimes a, unmist misunderstood and a victim of circumstance there as a cadet, you know, but I couldn't wait to lead soldiers to build teams, teams that, you know, are part of missions bigger than themselves, and teams to kind of become like a family, a good army unit's like a family. And, and, you know, you're bound together by mutual trust, common purpose, your sense of honor. And what we saw in combat in Desert Storm is our

Eagle Troop of the second armored cavalry regiment, we were, you know, we were bound together like a family. And it's really a bond of affection almost. And your sense of honor, like you fear letting the soldier down next to you more than you fear the enemy, you know, or enemy bullets. And what we did is we encountered a much larger force, a force, you know, eight, ten times our size, in the middle of a sandstorm. It was a Republican Guard unit. We attacked because we got to jump on them. If you think about like a boxing analogy, like we stung them with our left. And the right option is to follow with your right and knock them out. And that's what we did in about a 23-minute battle. We destroyed, you know, we destroyed, you know, 50-some armored vehicles in those 23 minutes, hundreds of trucks,

hundreds of infantry. Later, we took hundreds of prisoners and we suffered no casualties in our troop, thank God. So what gave us the power to do that, Anthony, was confidence in who we are as a team, confidence in each other. And, you know, we did kind of what we expected, you know, and our soldiers were so well trained, Anthony. I mean, some of them after the battle, they said, my loader, my tank loader. You know, he said, I ain't going to lie, sir. I was fixing to panic. But I said, don't panic, just do your job, you know, and he fell back on his training. And so I'm so proud of those guys. And it's just, it's the kind of teamwork, you know, that you want to, in any organization. And, you know, you saw me trying to build that kind of teamwork within our NSC staff in the White

House, years later. Yeah, listen, I mean, I think you know this, and I know this, I know this from my business career. We have to build a team. You know, Reagan had a great line on his desk that you can get anywhere you want in life as long as you don't care who gets the credit. I think we both know that line well. We tried to live by that. The book you're writing is about a war with ourselves, but some of it is actually a war with Donald Trump. And it is because he's a team of one. You know that. I know that, you're more or less right about that. Yeah, not a team builder. Not a team builder.

How do you, how do you, you're trying to help somebody who's a team of one. And so it's hard to talk to him, right? Because you experienced this. I witnessed you in my 11 short days experiencing this with him where you're trying to talk to him. He may not know something, but doesn't want you to know that he doesn't know something. He certainly doesn't want you to tell him in front of other people the differences in political sex in the Middle East or what various historical treaties mean to different areas of the world.

And so you're in a minefield. But before we get there, I want to talk about managing that minefield in a second. But before we get there, let's talk about the call that comes in from Katie Walsh, someone I know well. She's a deputy chief of staff for Reince Previs. General Flynn is being replaced after 2.1 scaramucci's, all right? So he's blown out after 23 days. And I knew I knew Mike, and I sat next to Mike during the transition. I was across the hallway. We each had our own conference rooms. We were both on the executive transition committee.

And I don't want to say anything disparaging about Mike, but I think he's lost his way at this point. And I know you like him, and you can give me your opinion if you want. But he's leaving. You're coming in. What do you say to your wife, Katie? What do you tell me about the transition from military work into the civilian job inside the White House. Yeah. And as you mentioned, Mike Flynn was a friend of mine all through the Army. Fantastic officer. I don't know what happened, Anthony, and he sort of got caught up on all these

conspiracy theories and encouraging, you know, anyway, I just, I don't know. I don't know. It's sort of like with Rudy Giuliani with me, you know. I like Rudy. He helped me in early my career. I don't like saying disparaging things about him now, even though he's lost the plot. That's right. So, hey, you know, that phone call I got, I tell the story and at war with ourselves. I'm walking down the street in Walnut Street in my hometown of Philadelphia. Where's my Philly's ad, man. Sorry, no offense to any of the God. I'm going to do this. I'm walking down, you know, walking the street, my hometown of Philadelphia.

So painful for me as a mess number. Go ahead. Keep going. My phone rings. It was Katie Walsh, you know, and Katie, you know, Katie says, hey, can you go to Moralago tomorrow? This was the Friday of President's Day weekend. And so this is one of those phone calls that changes your life. And, you know, I'd had a few of these. I mean, I was a fellow at Stanford University at the Hoover Institution for War College. And we're about to invade Iraq and I get a phone call that I'm going to the Middle East, you know, so so I call I call my wife

Katie, you know well and you know, and said, hey, I got this phone call. She's, of course you have to do it. I mean, you know, she's the same way that I thought about it. This was my, you know, seventh commander in chief, you know, that I would said served across my career. How do you, how do you not do your duty, you know? And so if go down to Mara Lago, it's, I winds up being a Sunday of President's Day weekend, I had the interview with President Trump that day and I describe the interview or interactions, the questions he's asking and everything. And then, and then he holds me over for a second interview on Monday. There had been a down select from the four candidates. I didn't know who was still a candidate until I ran into John Bolton in the men's room, you know, kind of

awkwardly, you know, ambassador general, you know. And then I walked down into the living room of Mara Lago. The president meets me. He goes, hey, there's not going to be another interview. I'm hiring you. He announced it. I fly back on Air Force One to Washington. I didn't live in Washington. I lived it down to Tidewater, Virginia. They fly me down a pack of bag and I start work Tuesday afternoon. You know, so, I mean, it was an abrupt change into like a significant job, obviously, and but I considered my duty, but also a privilege, you know, to serve in that position and to help what I regarded as a disruptive president disrupt a lot of what needed to be

disrupted in Washington. I mean, you, I mean, you know, that's what president, that's what Donald Trump tapped into is the belief on the part of a lot of Americans that Washington elites had, you know, had abandoned them, you know, and it had pursued strategies in a foreign policy area. in national security area as well that they just weren't working for the country or for that. Okay. And we both agree with that. And I've said this to you. You and I've talked privately about him seeing the desperation in blue-collar America that other elite politicians didn't see or career politicians. And I think it's an important part of our future story, how we heal that fissure,

if you will, in the body politic of the country. But I want to talk about something that you address in the book, which is that we do get a lot of things right. You know, we form native. We have strategic alliances around the world. We're trying to reject terrorism. We're trying to find ways around the world to combat terrorism, keep people in the free world safe and keep them free. And so talk to me, if you will, and you write about it beautifully in the book about things we're getting right, things that we needed to change. You know, like there's a wrecking ball approach, General McMaster, but then there's also a version 2.0 of software where there's a gunk in the system that needs to be. be changed. So tell us a little bit about that. Do we need to wreck everything or there's certain institutions that are vital that need modification? Where are you on this stuff, you know, and more or less what you've written in the book? So, you know, the story in the book is, as you already kind of alluded to, Anthony, about a lot of the friction that I encounter, you know, with the president, I talk about the three A's of, you know, allies, Afghanistan and authoritarian's where we had different perspectives.

But really, you know, he was aligned. We were all aligned, you know, in a lot of critical areas, like burden sharing, for example, among alliances. Hey, getting our allies to invest more in defense, that strengthens alliances. But then, of course, with Donald Trump, he takes it a step further and says, okay, I'm not going to defend you if you don't pay up, which psychologically weakens, you know, the alliance and could encourage Vladimir Putin. So again, this is a theme of helping Donald Trump disrupt what needs to be disrupted. And what was most effective, Anthony, was we modified kind of the way we would interact with him

based on the way he learns, the way he thinks. What he likes to do is challenge the assumptions of the past. So, hey, what about the assumption that China, having been welcomed into the international order, would play by the rules? And as China prospered, it would liberalize its economy and liberalized its form of governance. That was the main assumption that underpinned U.S. policy toward China since he had the Cold War.

Hey, it's a false assumption. And because it was implicit, it was never really challenged. So we challenged it and we helped Donald Trump put into place. I think the most significant shift in U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, Anthony, and that's one that the Biden administration has carried on. It's an element of continuity. We dramatically changed our approach to the Middle East and to Iran. And the value of a lot of Donald Trump's decisions, especially that one, only became apparent to many Americans until the Biden administration reversed it, you know, and went back to the Obama approach of trying to

conciliate the Ayatollah and the Iranians. And that didn't work. And I think in many ways that you know, encouraged the conflagrations we see in the region as well as, as the horrific, horrendous attacks of October 7th of last year. So, so I think that was another, another big shift. You know, we, uh, we began to rebuild our defense to, you know, to address a bow wave, a bow wave of deferred military modernization. We put 180 degrees shifts in place on Venezuela. Again, by administration, you know, reversed that. How did that work out? You know, this conciliatory approach to these groups, even the, the Houthis, they, and does it, undescentated the Houthis is a terrorist organization. So I think that in many ways, his policies were solid from a

foreign policy perspective. But in others, he would make a tough decision, Anthony, but then he couldn't keep that decision. And I'm thinking in particular about the South Asia strategy and Afghanistan in particular. Yeah. So I'm going to test a few things on you. Never really talked about in the mainstream media. I don't bring them up. And I'm just curious to get your reaction. So some would say that the move of the embassy, he was told by the State Department not to move it, he was told by secular Jews not to move it. The Orthodox community wanted them to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And people say that there was a dramatic increase in Hamas funding and other terrorist organization funding after that. Do you believe that or do you believe that that movement of the

embassy had no impact? I believe it had no impact, Anthony. The reason I think that, I think that the increase in Hamas funding and Hezbollah funding was the Biden administration not enforcing the Trump era sanctions. You know, once those sanctions hit the Iranians cut under Trump, they cut their stipends in half. But and so, so hey, the other thing to remember is multiple presidents going back to Bill Clinton and said they're going to move the embassy. And Congress, I think it passed like with, you know, I think like 49 out of 50 votes in the Senate to just do it. It's just no president had had the guts to do it. It's one of the good things about Trump is like, hey, he'll do stuff like that, you know, but what we did, Anthony, I tell the story in the book is rather than just

make that decision impulsively, you know, we brought that into the National Security Council decision-making process and we did our best to mitigate the downside and protect against the risk, you know, associated with it. Now, anyway, I could, I mean, it's more complicated than that, but the stories in the book about how we did it and how we helped the president, you know, in this case, I think, I think make the right decision on that. Now, what I would have loved is maybe something else associated with it, like holding out the potential for a portion of East Jerusalem to be maybe a future, you know, capital and a Palestinian state, you know, there could have been other, you know, mitigating factors that the president decided against. But hey, I didn't

get elected. He got elected, right? So I gave him the options, got him the advice. He made the decision. And this is an area where the cabinet all moved out. Like the Secretary of State Defense, you know, they recommended against it initially. But, but then they did their best to implement the president's decision, which is the way it should be. Okay. Let me try another one on you. Okay, that's great that you refuted that. What about the slowdown of armaments to the Ukraine? Something that he was impeached for, frankly, was space created as a result of Donald Trump's decision-making and this unexplained love affair with Vladimir Putin, which, frankly, you write about. You can't. You can't figure out what the love affair was. I certainly can't. I can't even speculate what it was. But you, you know, the theory that he slowed down the arms.

We had this Operation Porcupine since 1994, fortified the Ukraine to protect the Ukraine, some form of deterrence. He slowed down the arms. NATO seemed fractured. We're going to go to his first NATO speech at the first NATO summit in a second. Putin said, hey, we got an opening here. This NATO thing is in disarray. The Americans have slowed down their arm shipments. Let me attack Ukraine or you don't believe that.

Well, I think it was wrong. what you think. I think it was, I think it was wrong for him to suspend, uh, arms shipments to the, to the, to the, on the, on the, on the, on the Biden's, you know, to, you know, uh, to, to, to, to use in in the election. But, hey, Anthony, I think what green lighted the Russian invasion was the, was the, you know, the fecklessness of the Biden administration demonstrated with the disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan, responsibility for which is shared with the Trump administration to. And I write about that, I criticize both administrations on it. But hey, when that happened, when August of 2020, one in Kabul happened, I think China and Russia said, these guys are over. They've surrendered to a

terrorist organization, or at least defeated themselves. And remember the joint statement before the Beijing Olympics, Anthony? Like, where they're like, hey, you know, you're done. We're in charge now. It's the new era of international relations. I think that's what led to the reinvasion. And the Biden administration, I would say, they pulled our ships out of the Black Sea. The Biden administration suspended weapons shipments to Ukraine, too, to allay Putin's security concerns. We listed all the things we wouldn't do to support Ukraine. We evacuated and scuttled our embassy, right, and took all of our advisors out. And then we offered Zelensky a ride out of the place. I mean, to me, that looks like we almost greenlighted the invasion. You know, so I think, you know, the story I tell in the book about

bringing the decision to President Trump to provide javelins to Ukraine the first time, the, you know, the point I was trying to make to him, and I describe how we did it with the chart and everything, is that what provokes Putin is the perception of weakness. Trump got that. But then, you know, he doesn't stick with it a lot of times, depending on who's in his ear, whether it's Rand Paul or whoever it is, you know, some of the kind of, I don't know, the retrenchers or neo-isolationist wings of the Republican Party. So, you know, anyway, there are a lot of stories in the book about Ukraine and his evolution

of his approach toward Russia. And I'm concerned about this is one of the areas I'm concerned about, you know, in a second Trump administration is would he sustain that support? What I'm hearing about these so-called peace plans would be a gift to Putin and misunderstand Putin again. Putin won't stop unless he is physically stopped in terms of his aggression, not only against Ukraine, but against Europe and the West in general. What do you think it is if you had to speculate? Never says a bad word about Putin, always praises Putin, tells people during an invasion, how smart Putin is. What do you think it is?

Well, there's a couple things. I want to hear what you think, maybe. maybe too, Anthony, because I'm sure we've got thoughts on this. But I think overall, like, you know, he fancies himself as like the great negotiator, right? And if you want to negotiate with somebody, you know, one of the techniques, right? We learned this and, you know, getting to yes, man, you know, negotiation mediation theory. You separate the relationship from the negotiation and you try to build a good relationship. That's one big part. He wants the big deal. I think that's one big part. Also, I think he sees authoritarian leaders regarded by their populations in the way he wants to be regarded, right? As a as a strong man.

And then the third aspect of this, you know, is he really wants to do what's right for the country in some areas. Like he's really worried about like the nuclear arms race, nuclear instability. And he thinks, okay, if I can get a really big deal, right, how great would that be? So, I mean, it's not all just weird motivations or warps motivations. He wants to accomplish some tangible things with Russia. And finally, Anthony, he's reflexively contrarian. So like if everybody tells him, hey, Vladimir Putin has to be confronted. Vladimir Putin is not going to back all.

You can't cut a deal with Vladimir Putin on Ukraine. You know, he tends to kind of want to do the opposite of what he hears. You know, so does that make sense to you? I mean, that's how I view it. I don't think he has anything on him. I don't think there's any. And all of that, I think, is noise that feeds into, you know, his kind of sense of beleaguermint and insecurities as president.

You know, the Mueller investigation, all of that charges of collusion. It created a really negative atmosphere, you know, in that first year. And I read a lot about that in the book as well. Oh, I mean, you know, this is me interviewing you, not you interviewing me, but I'll just say one thing and then I'll switch to something else. I think it's a money thing. I know this sounds weird, but he loves money and he loves attention. And I see, I think he sees himself as having a moneyed relationship with Vladimir Putin. You know, he wanted to build a Moscow Trump Tower and he sees Putin as the richest person in the world. And I think it's a money thing.

But whatever. That's just me. And I agree with you. I don't think they have anything on them. I don't think it's very simplistic stuff, which, but to me, you know, it's unpresidential, but that's just for me. You know, the United States, you know, because you've looked at our intelligence briefings, you know the adversary relationship we have with Russia. You know what they're doing to foment division in our democracy. You may remember this. You recommended a book to me called Putin's People by Catherine Belton. I don't know if you remember that. But you got me on. onto that book. And during COVID, I read the whole book. And it would be hard pressed as an American president if you read a book like that to say, hey, I'm going to be so praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin. I mean, no American president would do that. So, all right, but let me, I know we're limited on time. I just want to go to two quick things. And then I'm going to ask you to respond to a few things. But I want to go to the NATO summit. And I want to go to something that I think you call reflexive contrarianism where you tell them, don't mention the fact that there's, we could use Venice

Well, and troops is a military option. And then he goes out to the press and says, well, we could use, you know. Actually, Tillerson is one who said it. And we're walking out to the press conference. And I said, Rex, I said, hey, you know, that's the first thing he's going to say now, you know. That's part of his narcissism. He has to show you that it can be done on his own. He's a team of one.

I'm going to drag myself to the presidency by myself without listening to anybody. And I'm going to run the presidency by myself without listening. anybody, but go to the NATO summit first. I know we have a few minutes left, and I want to get you to respond to a few things. Okay, so NATO summit is we, you know, I tell the story in the book, you know, that he hosts President Macron, you know, and at first we're like, man, are these guys going have a good relationship I was worried about, but then they got along almost too well, because McCrone's kind of bagging on NATO a little bit. The president is also, you know, and I thought, oh, this is not the frame of mind when he's going to NATO. And we were going to NATO to dedicate a 9-11

memorial with a piece of the Twin Towers and doing it to commemorate the only time that NATO has come to the defense of an attacked nation, us on 9-11, right? So as we're prepping for the speech over multiple weeks, you know, in recent days for sure. And, you know, he wanted to put this line in there about like if you don't pay up, if you don't pay your dues, which was really investing in the country's own defense to a minimum of the equivalent of 2% of gross domestic product, you know, that we're not going to defend you. I said, hey, Ms. President, listen, you know, you can make the point on burden sharing. But once you say that, the entire narrative is going to be about you not coming to the defense.

And you're not going to make the point you want to make about burden sharing. You're going to get in your own way on this. So he was persuaded by that. But then, you know, Anthony again, at the 11th hour, you know, Stephen Miller comes out, like the, you know, the head speech writer and domestic political policy council lead. And he looks at me and I could tell he was like, I'm afraid that I would get super angry with him or something. It's like, it wasn't me. I swear it wasn't me. you know, and he added this language back into the, into the speech.

We're about to get into the beast, the president's car, to go to NATO headquarters. And I'm walking down with the secretary of state security defense. And I said, hey, you got to get in the car with me and talk him out of this because it's destructive to our interest. It's destructive to Trump's own agenda. And they're like, oh, no, I don't really, you know, we're not, you know, we're not going to get. I said, get in the effing car, please, you know, they got in the car. He changed the speech. But now, of course, you've seen this rhetoric, you know, come back during the campaign.

Can't help himself. Can't help. himself. So, all right, so we're here. You're a military person. I'm not going to ask you anything politically. I want to be respectful of that. But you've written a book that people should read. And I think they can draw their own conclusions. But my producer and I, we've got five words that we want you to respond to. And since we have two minutes left in the podcast, I'm going to say the word, you give me one or two sentences. Okay, you ready? Yeah. So when I say the word duty, you say what, general? I think it's our duty as, as Americans do the best for our country to

succeed. Certainly as a military officer, duty is to the Constitution of the United States. And my duty as national security advisor was to help the elected president make the best possible decisions. So subordinate personal interest for the greater good of the country, right? Absolutely. Right. Okay. United States. I say the two words, United States, you think what? I think it's past time for us to get beyond the vitriol of our partisan political discourse and the interaction between identity politics and old forms of bigotry, sexism, racism, and, and And reemphasize our common identity as Americans and also to celebrate, you know, the great gift of being in a country where we have the freedoms that we enjoy. We should celebrate those freedoms and celebrate our common identity as Americans.

Okay. So that's the re-united states. I love that. I got two words. We've got just a few more. We're going to end it shortly. I say the words, White House. You say what?

A privilege to serve there, you know, and a great team. A great team that works there that Americans don't know. I mean, I tried to tell the story in the. and war with ourselves about like, you know, not everybody was at war of themselves. And we had a, we had a fantastic team on the NSE staff who worked every day to help the president and advance the country's security, prosperity, and influence. When I think of the White House, I think of like an extended stay motel. You know, I was there very briefly. Okay, I'm kidding. Okay, let's go to the, let's go to the word Trump. I say the word Trump. You say what?

Disruptive, flawed. Yeah. But, you know, but, you know, but, but, but, you know, but, but, you but not weak, right? Not weak, but disruptive and flawed. And, you know, the key, the question is, Anthony, you know, I mean, how do you, how would you help him if he's reelected? How can anybody, you know, help him, again, disrupt what needs to be disrupted? But again, I'm writing the book, the sad thing is Anthony, he becomes the antagonist in his own story, right? Right. He's the antagonist. He's become an anti-hero, which is totally unnecessary. He does stuff that's so self-destructive. But let's go to 2024, your thoughts there. Okay, 2024, you're talking about November 5th, 2024. Yeah, I just think it's not a great choice, you know, but I just got to tell you, Anthony, as a military officer, and you heard me to say this, you know, I think the military is getting drug into partisan politics by both parties and we've got to stop it. And even though I'm just, I'm just a washed up general, I think if I were to like endorse a candidate or something like that, they'd be like, no, I don't expect you to do that. I just think, you know, I think, right, so I would say 2024 is a crossroads. Crossroads. Because if Trump's defeated, a new center-right coalition has an opportunity to brew up. If he's not defeated, then what he represents and this whole MAGA thing could be transformative to the country. And we may like or dislike it. I'll leave it up to other people to make that decision. Can I say one thing, Anthony? I just hope that no matter who's elected, that Americans, you know, try to help that president succeed.

You know, I'll take, we've seen, we've seen like the renewed Russian efforts to undermine the election. I don't think the Russians give a damn who gets elected. What they really want is to ensure that large numbers of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the result. That's what they really love. That's what Catherine Belton said in her book. And I believe that. Before you go, I just have to say that you lasted 41.3 scaramucci's by your own rendition.

And since I'm the official scorer of scaramuchis, you scored yourself properly. So I just want you to know that. But the funniest part about my time in the White House, you invited me to your house. I think it was at Fort McNair. You said, we're going to have a welcome to the West Wing party. Of course, I got my ass fired before the party, right? So you had the party slated for August 1. I got fired on July 31st.

But you're a good sport. I'm a good sport. We had a goodbye from the West Wing party. That's right. And Gary Cohn, a couple of my buddies showed up. Your wife was there with your beautiful daughters. And it was a great day for me. It was a sign of good sportsmanship, right?

There we all were cooking burgers, having a beer. I got fired. I never blamed the president for my firing. I own my firing. And I appreciate you trying to save me. But I also understand why General Kelly fired me. So there's no, there's no ill will anywhere. But the book is awesome, HR. I know you have to go. The title of the book is at war with ourselves. My tour of duty in the Trump White House. It's a great picture of the two of you because I can see the look on your face like what the F am I getting into. And of course, you had to write a several hundred-page book to describe that. And I admire you a great deal, General. Thank you for being a great American. And thank you for coming on the show. Hey, Anthony, I admire you. And you know, when I describe you, I often use the word irrepressible,

the irrepressible mooch. And I enjoyed the hell out of that, that one scaramucci that you serve for, man. It was great, it was great to serve with you. So what a phenomenal book and great person. As the general said, we need a renewed focus on American unity. And I have to tell you, I love both of his books. We interviewed him for Battlegrounds a few years ago. This book is more about the intrigue inside the White House, his thoughts on NATO, his thoughts on our alliances. What makes America strong, in my opinion, is the strength of our alliances and the unity of our communication with those alliances. I think we have a tendency sometimes due to politics to send mixed signals If we can avoid doing that in the future, I think it leads to a stronger America, stronger alliances, and it causes a deterrence for our adversary.

So I think it's very, very important that we listen to H.R. McMaster. Also, when a Scaramucci, which is a unit of time measured by 11 days, comes up in any book, I mean, how could I not love it? And of course, McMaster is using it in his own sentence, fired by Donald Trump, H.R. McMaster lasted 41.3. Karamuchis. Can you imagine that? So as Trump had said in the debate recently, he fired many people unceremoniously. Someone he definitely should not have fired was HR. But there you have it. Great book. Great read about where we are today in our foreign policy and where we need to go. My guest on the show today is General H.R. McMaster. He was the National Security Advisor for Trump mom. And he wrote a book about his time in the White House. And he said that one of the problems with dealing with Donald Trump was he was too unpredictable. And like me, and like me, after about a year and a couple of months, he got fired.

You think it would be easy to deal with Donald Trump if you were his national security advisor, ma'am? Absolutely not. He's helping at everyone like, and the reason why he's a bully is because he's insecure and away he acts. Yes. So McMaster says we've got to do a better job of unifying the country. Do you think the country's too divided now, ma'am? Sorry, divided. Yeah, I too.

Okay, is Trump helping? I think we're in a mess. Okay. I think Biden is a very nice human being, but he's too nice for the good. Okay. He's too nice for his own good. Okay. That's how I feel.

All right. He's probably a little old for the job, though, too. I think that's something that everyone notices. So, so. Okay. So, right, you know, you wanted to. Right, you wanted to stop the nervous legs. I told her that.

I just got to stop the nervous laugh. Yeah. The laugh is like, you know, it's like somebody saying, um, or it's like a personality tick. It's not, doesn't mean she's not smart. It's just she's got to stop it. It's not helping her. Yeah.

It's not an asset to her doing that. You know what I mean? I mean, like, say she's thing with the people who think she's totally blacked. All right. I gave her that advice. Okay, it's good advice, ma. All right, ma. Thank you for joining the podcast.

All right. Love you, Mom. Thank you for having me. I love you, baby. Call me later. All right. Love you, Mom. Bye. Love you. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram.

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