Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - He Repaired My Marriage And Then We Lost Him Forever - Mike Maimone

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

I got fired from the White House, my marriage was falling apart, and the guy who talked me off the ledge was my publicist, Howard Bragman, a man so full of life he'd call you 'numbnuts' one minute and heal your family the next. On this episode of Open Book, musician Mike Maimone tells me what it was like to love Howard, lose him, and turn that grief into the most honest book I've read all year. Mike Maimone is a singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer. He has written and published more than two hundred songs, many heard on TV, in movies, and on the radio. He has played festivals such as Lollapalooza, headlined legendary venues like the Metro and the Troubador, performed on keys with Stevie Wonder, and toured in support of OK Go, Plain White T's, Blues Traveler, and more. I loved his late husband, Howard Bragman, and I loved this book, Guess What? I Love You , which I recommend you pick up ASAP. Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: ⁠https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit Scotia Bank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. Love is like picking the gum off of someone else's shoe. It's like getting complete fulfillment and happiness out of pushing yourself out of your own comfort zone to make someone else happy. When I hear the word love, I think of unconditionality. think about how important it is, not just with your children or people that share your DNA, but can you get there with your spouse or someone that you really love?

Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining me today is Mike Momone, musician, songwriter. He's an author. And guess what? I love you. Well, that's the title of the book. I may love you at the end of this, Mike. I'm not sure, okay? We're meeting for the first time. But the title of the book is, guess what? I love you. It's great to have you before we, get into the book, tell our listeners a little bit about your background, your journey as a musician, songwriter, and also more importantly, which I think is the thing that we love the most about you, is the storytelling. Okay, yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, and all, it's a great opportunity to be here. I appreciate it. I am primarily a musician, singer, songwriter,

producer, piano player, but I actually went to school for accounting. I have a business degree from Notre Dame. And I did that for about a year. I had a near-death experience on the freeway after work one day. And that was the moment I said, you know what, I need to give music a fair shot. And I quit my job, moved to Chicago, got the college band back together. We had a, we had a showcase for a major label. The rest of the guys decided to go on to be doctors and more valuable things to society and I said I caught the bug for music so I just kept going and so I've been a musician full time for 20 years and yeah the I just started writing recently I felt like I'd been given the story to tell and I had always enjoyed writing but this was my motivation to really go for it.

One of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on is I got fired brutally from the White House after 11 days. And so at a recommendation to me was that I hired a crisis communications manager by the name of Howard Bragman. Of course, I did that. And Howard Bragman then told me, and to bed Howard, unfortunately, we lost Howard, which is we're going to get into in the book here in a second. But he was an amazing guy. Somebody I dearly love. I actually even went, you may have not know this, but I actually went to Israel with him and said, Kaddish at the tomb of Rachel. with Howard on behalf of his mom who had passed a year prior to our visit to Israel. And I loved him.

He was a great guy. He gave me, and I always teased him about this, he gave me the worst goddamn public relations of vice possible and just hear me out for a second. Bragman told me, wow, this is an unmitigated disaster. You're a rich guy. You should buy a villa in Tuscany and hang out in Tuscany for five years. and then come back sometime in 2022, and we'll try to repair your relationship. And then I told him, I told him F you,

give me the phone number to Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher. You got him in your phone and Jimmy Kimmel, and I'm going on all the shows. And then he used to lovingly tease me that there was no other person that could have pulled that off, but I loved him. And I say all that stuff teasingly, of course. Yeah, of course.

He was a great consulari and a, and a great counselor. But at the heart of this book is a love story. And take us back to the beginning. How did you meet Howard Ragman? And what was it about him that made you realize that your relationship with him was so different, Mike? Yeah.

Well, first I wanted to say that that's part of the reason I really was looking forward to speaking with you is because you knew him in that way and you guys were friends. I love them. I've just been on this mission since losing him to just learn more about him, to talk to the people that loved him and that he loved. And when we first met, I was living in Nashville. I had moved there just before the pandemic, which is a horrible time to move to a new city.

I had a pretty auspicious start there. But then after the pandemic, I developed paracarditis, swelling of the lining of my heart. And so I was sort of taking a step back from performing. I was writing for other people doing session keyboard work. Howard was coming to Nashville. to represent a trans woman who had been treated pretty horribly by the Vanderbilt power plant. So he came on pro bono to represent her.

And so he was sort of scouting ahead, if you will, on Scruff. And so we found each other on an app. And, you know, I at first was thinking this is a long distance thing. It took us two and a half months to even meet in person. But from the minute he texted me, he had just the most unusual way of reaching out. He said, I listen to your music. You sound like the love child of Randy Newman and Leon Russell.

I was like, this is not the normal chatter on a dating app. So just from minute one, I could tell that he could see to the core of who I was as an artist and a person. And we just grew very close, very quickly, even though we were separated by 2,000 miles. You're from different generations. Yeah, different life experiences. and I would also say from completely different worlds when I read the book, I was amazed at your self-reflective honesty in the book. I think the book, frankly, has a lot of integrity. So what was it, Mike?

What connected you so deeply? Yeah, ostensibly there were tons of differences, but I think because we couldn't meet in person and we had this two and a half month lead up of just talking on the phone every day and I am not a phone person. but we connected really deeply, really fast about the things we did have in common. Our love of family, our spirituality, both of us, you know, he's Jewish, I'm Catholic, but both of us sort of had a falling out with the structure of our religions, but still consider ourselves spiritual and worth the type of person to tell anybody what to believe or not believe. Our work ethics and music, we loved a lot of the same music.

So we discovered so many things despite our age difference, despite our different place in life that we did have in common. You know with this. I just want to share with the viewers and listeners. This is a guy that was a very brave guy at the University of Michigan came out. He basically said, hey, I'm gay. I guess he was either 19 or 20. This was at a time when there was a huge stigma of that mic. And in some ways, he was a pioneer.

and frankly, you know, I have a nephew that's gay. I was an equal marriage equality supporter back in 2008 with Andrew Cuomo. Even though I was a Republican, I gave money for that cause, helped to work on that nationally. And he was a trailblazer for many people because, you know, there was stigma back then. And I would say this. If you were born in the 1950s or you were born of the 1960s. And again, this is my opinion. If you disagree, please push back. I feel like I was born with my sexuality.

I don't think I chose whether to be heterosexual or homosexual. I don't think it's like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. I think it's part of your design. Yeah. And he had the bravery to admit that to himself. So many people. And again, I don't blame these people. I totally get it.

They closeted themselves. And I just want to go over a few of these people. Michael Sam, Chas Bono. Kelly Wright, Meredith Baxter, who was Michael J. Fox's mom on family ties. He helped every single one of those people come out, Mike. So what did he understand about narrative and reputation that the rest of us didn't? What did you learn, I guess, from watching him work? Yeah, I actually had a similar experience in terms of growing up, knowing that I needed to hide my sexuality when I finally, kind of understood what it was because I didn't see myself in the 80s and 90s represented in media. I thought, you know, the people that I saw on TV, that that isn't the sort of person I am. It wasn't until I got to a bigger city, experienced the tapestry, the really diverse, eclectic thing that being in the LGBTQ community is that I realized what what I really was.

And I think that that's part of the importance of what Howard did was he increased the visibility. of members of this community so that we can all see ourselves represented and realize this is okay. So for each individual person, it was definitely their own coming out journey. And so first and foremost, I think he would tell people, this has to be your decision. You're not doing this for anyone else. But when you do it as a celebrity, it's going to mean a lot to a lot of people. If you don't mind me asking this personal question, I think it's helpful. Okay.

When did you come out? How old were you? I was 30 when I came out to my parents. I had been living with a partner for three years. And it just felt awful to be lying and living that, you know, half truth of the, like, this is my roommate. You felt, I mean, again, but you felt pressure not to come out because of societal norms and because you didn't want people to feel, you know, awkward about it, right? I mean, all of the typical things that happen, right? Yeah. I mean, I grew up in a pretty small town, Estabula, Ohio outside Cleveland.

I played football and basketball growing up. My family, I would say they're sort of like left of center now. But, you know, growing up, my dad was a conservative. And, you know, going to church, being in a Catholic family, all of these things were pushing me away from living my truth. So I, when I finally sort of came to grips with it, I felt I had to keep it internal until I just couldn't do it anymore. So, you know, Howard and I were reasonably close.

Like, you know, bullshit tight. You know, we talk about different things. And he once said to me, and you actually reference it in the book, I'm like, well, this is totally true because I heard him say it, that he was, you know, not going to find his forever person. Okay. And I believe you said that as well. Is that fair to say?

I just want to stay consistent with the story. and so now you guys get together, you end up getting married, and then we get a big moment here, and this is the thing that shocked me the most. He gets sick and then dies very quickly, Mike, no? It was extremely fast. It was from his diagnosis to passing, it was only 10 days. And so we were engaged, I think, for the first week, you know,

we were committed to fighting it. And then at some point, it was extremely hard for me to realize, but, you know, it's not about me that it was his decision. And he just decided he didn't want to anymore. So we got married in his hospital bed and then he went on hospice right after the ceremony. I know that part of the story. I mean, this is very painful. My heart goes out to you. You become a widower at 41.

Yeah. And this is all so sudden. So what did the grief inspire? And I think it did. I mean, when I read the book, I'm like you were almost the pain that you were put in from the loss, I think inspired you. It inspired some songwriting. There's a songbook that accompanies the actual book. Do I have that right?

Did you, were you inspired almost? have a greater appreciation for life as a result of what's happened. Yeah, I mean, seeing Howard and the way that he conducted himself at the end of his life just changed how I wanted to wake up every day. I mean, he was expressing gratitude. He was tending to his family and friends and making sure we were all okay. And that's just a sign of a life well lived, of a very full heart. And he just accomplished everything he ever wanted to.

So I think it inspired me in my day to day to, well, first and foremost, to value relationships. To really, really seeing how people came back for him in that, you know, obviously most dire time, it showed that the value of being there for other people. So everybody was there for him when he needed it because he was there for them. So it really encouraged me to just focus more on my loved ones, on my relationships. and to really also just go after what I want and make sure that I don't have any regrets when it comes time for that.

Thank you for tuning in an open book. And if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button below so that you're the first to know when our new episodes drop each week. We've got a lot more coming. And now back to the show. Role model for dying is also a role model for living, right?

Absolutely. Tell me why. Because I think, you know, none of us will know until we're staring down that moment what it exactly feels like, but being so close to him gave me a sense that his calm and his peace and his ability to tend to us showed me that he was ready. And he was only ready because he lived the hell out of his life. He was just, he did it all. Listen, I mean, he was about being open. And, you know, when I think about Howard and I said this after he passed to a group of people,

that he spent he spent his career helping other people live openly. Yes. Okay. And so that is a big trailblaze for so many people. And I guess in some sense, when I closed the book, I felt like the book was his last campaign. I feel like you have carried the torch for him. Yeah.

And, you know, I would send this to a lot of people to read because I would want them to know that it's okay to be yourself and it's okay to experience life on the terms that your nature has dictated. Yeah. And I love that for you, but I also love that part of the book. Yeah, thank you for saying that. I actually started the book as a way to tell the world about Howard's legacy. It really wasn't until after his memorial, his celebration of life, when all these people came forward

and shared their stories that I really started to grasp the magnitude of what he met to so many people. And so I thought, let me just see if I can put together a documentary. Like, let me make a treatment for this. And I went through his phone and just looked up all of the producers that he had worked with before and sent it around. And a lot of people said they loved it. They loved Howard. But one person in particular said, you know, this is like a 10-year project for you. Why don't you just start writing your feelings down?

your thoughts, your experience now while everything is fresh and vivid, unfortunately, my memory would fade. So I was so grateful that he told me to do that. And I realized what I was doing was telling the world about Howard, but through the lens of our love story. If he could read one of these chapters, I feel like each one of these chapters is like a song almost. I mean, it's like a, it's like a rendition.

Yeah. So I said, okay, Howard could read one of these chapters. which one would you want him to read? I think he would get a kick out of a lot of the just shenanigans that we got into in the middle part. But I, and I hope he would think that I got his voice right. But I think the one that he would love, given the current situation, is the last one. Because he changed my life when he entered it and then he completely changed it again when he left it. and opening my eyes to possibilities,

keeping my heart open, the just insane things that have happened to me since, I think that he would just be glad to know that I kept my head up and my eyes open and have kept going. Is there a chapter in there that you wouldn't want him to read? Yeah, I think I wouldn't want him to revisit the hospital. It's a rough chapter, by the way.

I mean, it was a painful chapter. But, you know, and again, I don't have to remember. I found out of his passing from you. I mean, you reached out to me to give me the heads up. And so I was just shocked. I mean, it's this time of the year for me, Mike, where I would see Howard. He was coming out to the Hamptons. And it was like August he would call me.

We'd have lunch. You know, he, you know. That actually, I would go back to that chapter because we did meet one time for lunch with Howard. And one of my favorite experiences in here. He said the same thing was. 75 May. No, I remember. Yeah, we were in the Hamptons.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I was saying that's when I read that, you go ahead. Yeah. So one of my favorite experiences with Howard was in the Hamptons when we just walked down the street kicking a tennis ball back and forth and kind of shared what was in our hearts. It was,

it was just one of those really simple, casual moments that you wouldn't even think of in while you're doing it. But looking back on our time together, That was just one of the most special, special things we shared. I mean, one of the, listen, he told me about you and he's like, you're going to meet him. And I was, like, flattered that I was in the camp of what I would call the Howard Mishpoka, you know what I mean, which is the Yiddish word for family, you know, that I was going to get the opportunity to meet you. I remember our lunch. It was very fun.

You've got a great sense of humor. He had an unbelievable sense of humor. He was a supreme, he was a supreme ballbuster in the very best sense of the way. And, of course, I always teased him about, you know, go to Tuscany and buy the villa. I mean, I'm still ready to choke him over that. That's one of those gems that I would just carry with me. I'm so glad you shared that. Right.

But I mean, you know, you know that's what he told me. I mean, and he was like under no circumstances you were going on a cold pad. Yeah. I'm not paying you for your advice. I'm paying you for your phone book. Okay. Give me the black book that you have. We're going to start making the calls.

Yeah. But, but, but, uh, and by the way, in fairness to him, it was. generally the right advice for people. And he was a maestro at managing crisis for people. And he got a lot, he got a lot of people out of a lot of public relations kerfuffles and snap foods. Um, you know, somebody said about the book, okay, because I went and looked up some of the reviews of the book, okay? And somebody said about the book that it's structured almost like a soundtrack. Uh, and that's what I said. And when they said that, I was like, whoa, the, these chapters are actually like, songs, you know, why was music the right framework to tell the story? And is that because it's

your love, the music? Yeah, it's, well, it was central to our relationship. We, we always had music on, whether we're in the car or in the house. And that's literally the first thing that we bonded over and the thing that really made me pay attention to his message on this, you know, dating app. So music was important to us, but it's also just where I, I'm comfortable. So that's just sort of the way I think each chapter kind of reminded me of a song. And so each chapter title is a song. And some of whom are mine, some of them are ones that we loved. Some of them just are things that the story and the chapter reminded me of. And I wanted to make it flow. So if you actually just listen to that playlist, it's supposed to be like a road trip

mix, like something you could just put on and listen to and ride the wave. You know, I've never told this to anybody, and maybe Howard told you this, but I doubt it. I was having problems with Deirdrup. You know, we were filed for divorce. I'd give him fire from the White House. All this stuff is well-known. I got fired from the White House. I missed the burst of my son, James, who's about to turn nine.

I mean, it was just an absolute debacle, but I was trying to repair my relationship with Deirdrup. and I was on path to do that. And on October of 2017, I had to go out to L.A. I was doing all the shows that Howard told me not to do. I was reading mean tweets on Kimmel and going on Bill Maher. And I even met Harvey at TMZ. And I did all the stuff.

And I was at the Cabana at the Barclos Hotel. And I said, listen, I'm on very heavy rocks. Theater has agreed to come out here. But you've got to come to the Cabana and have lunch with us. And, you know, he's a great dude because he was a very healing, you know, almost rabbinical in some ways, a very wise man about human relationships. And he was a very wise about, hey, hey, numb nuts, you two guys love each other, you know, drop the ego and get it back together, which thankfully, you know, for sake of ourselves and our children, we were able to do. but it always meant a lot to me. And when I read the book,

I'm like very grateful to you, Mike, for you've casted him. You know, you have his memory. He was a larger than life figure in my mind who helped people over many decades. And weirdly, you're his publicist. You know, he was the publicist for all of us. Yeah.

But you're like weirdly the publicist for him, you know? I definitely have. have understood the magnitude of trying to be the mouthpiece for like one of the best to ever do it. Right. So what do you think he would have made of being at the center of all this? Yeah. It's interesting because he, as a publicist, he was always the person behind the camera. But eventually he did so well. And as you said, you know, he had a larger than life personality. So he would get invited onto these shows just to give his opinion on, you know, whatever, the hot button issue of the day was. And so I think he would like it. I think he enjoyed being in front

of the camera. Yeah. I think so. I used to watch him on Good Morning America. Yeah. And he had a beautiful way of explaining things. He had a really good deadpan, dry sense of humor. Absolutely. You know, my last question before I turn to the five words for our show is really about sadness and heartbreak. What I admire again about the book is you don't turn away from the heartbreak, but it's also not defined by it. You know, I feel like there's something devotional and uplifting about the book. And so there had to be really hard to strike that balance. But give me some thoughts as a writer in terms of what was going through your head. Because, I mean, you've got the readers bleeding with you. But at the same time, you get the readers thinking, hey, man, this is life. And we get through

these things. And we, you know, and then we also have to meet our makers at some point as well. And so I don't know, I think there's just beautiful messaging So how did you pull it together? Thank you. That means a lot that that comes through. It was definitely intentional and Howard actually had a lot to do with that. He loved being a muse. He wanted, you know, he always asked me, when are you going to write a song about me?

And I said, well, I haven't really written love songs before. If I write a relationship song, it means something went horribly wrong. You're a Taylor Swift person? Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, now he has a whole album of songs and they're all love songs. But he told me a few things at the end of his life. You know, first of all, just life is for the living. He told me to use the pain and make good art with it.

So I wanted to make sure just like, you know, any of my songs that explore like the pain and heartbreak of anything I've experienced, I never like to leave the listener or the reader down in that place. I just want to pull up some kind of silver lining, some kind of motivation to keep going and to look for the positives and to have hope. So I knew that I needed to figure out how. And the fact that the book and the album took me over two years to complete means that it's, this is like watching my healing journey progress in real time. So as I was writing it, I was also going down that path and I was able to write those last

couple of chapters from a more, from a hopeful place. It took me probably over a year to realize, like, I was just lucky. Like, just the year that we had, having it at all was worth the pain of losing him at the end. Better to have loved and lost. All right. So I'm down to the five words. I'm going to start with that one if you don't mind. Let's talk about love for a second.

When I say the word love, give me one or two sentences that comes to mind. I think love is like picking the gum off of someone else's shoe. It's like getting complete fulfillment and happiness out of like pushing yourself out of your own comfort zone to make someone else happy. Yeah. You know, when I hear the word love, I think of unconditionally and I think about how important it is, not just with your children or people that share your DNA, but can you get there with your spouse or someone that you really love? I want to say the word music, Mike.

What do you say? Like breath, it's just fundamental to life. It's the soundtrack. Everybody's got it. That's the shunt into the universe, I think, music. We all find ourselves feeling it. What about the word grief, Mike? Not an ending.

I think grief is a grief is important to accept, to process and to take with us, but it's not, it's not the end. There's more. What about memory? Fleeting.

Memory is something that we have to keep. And I think telling stories, telling our stories and sharing our stories is a way to just make sure that we progress, that we learn. that we take care of each other. All right.

These are the last two words, Mike. And then I'm going to give you the last word, Howard Bragman. Oof. How do you sum up a person like Howard Bragman in one sentence? I had a whole read a whole book about it. I would say anyone who has known Howard counts themselves lucky to call him a friend. Well, I'm here as one of those people. I think of them often.

I think of them often with love and laughter. Exactly the way I hope he would want me to think of him, you know, is the big gigantic pain in the ass that he was, you know. And but he was great to me and was very helpful in helping me rebuild my family and also a big part of my reputation. So I really do appreciate you honoring him with this book. And my heart goes out to you, by the way. I'm, you know, I grieve for his loss as a friend,

but you agree for his loss as someone, as a spouse, as someone who loved him the way you did, and you've expressed it beautifully in this book. Thank you. And so I give you a lot of kudos there. So ladies and gentlemen, Mike Lamanis, he is the author of Guess What? I love you.

Okay, thank you so much today for joining us at Open Book. Thank you for having me. It means a lot.