Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Inside the Bedroom & Boardroom of Billionaire Sumner Redstone with James B. Stewart

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Anthony talks with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist James B. Stewart about his new book Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy, co-authored with Rachel Abrams.  The book chronicles sex-obsessed media mogul Sumner Redstone, whose life according to James was a constant “jaw drop.” James discusses misogyny, betrayal and lies. Is there a secret child of one of Redstone’s late mistresses?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. I'm Anthony Scaramucci and welcome to Open Book, where I talk with some of the most interesting and brilliant minds in our world today. In this show, I'll bring on guests in business, politics, entertainment, and more to go deep into a piece of their work, whether it's a highly anticipated book, an in-depth feature story, or an opinion piece that has captured my attention. We'll dig into why it matters to you and how their work is shaping our future. On today's open book, with best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Stewart.

We all know the truth can be crazy in my nearly 60 years of life. I've seen some wild shit. And I'll tell you, you can't get any wilder than James Stewart's new book unscripted. With co-author Rachel Abrams, James revealed the inside story of Paramount and the Redstone family, From wealth and greed to sex and manipulation, we talk about everything they uncovered in this conversation. Joining us now on Open Book, one of my favorite authors, I'm a fanboy of James Stewart. I've read every single one of your books, starting way, way back with Den of Thieves, Disney Wars, etc. You are a best-selling author, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. You have a great byline in the New York Times.

But I think this could be your opus. I honestly think that we're going to discuss it in the United States. the second. It's called unscripted, the epic battle for a media empire and the Redstone family legacy. It's an instant New York Times bestseller. I have so many questions, James, because I read the book and I told my staff, I started this book on a Sunday, and I finished it on Monday afternoon. And my wife was like, what the hell are you doing? I said, well, this thing is so good. Isn't the truth, Stranger than fiction. James B. Stewart.

It absolutely is. I mean, the idea of the title unscripted was that it's like it's a reality show because it is true. And honestly, if I even could make it up, which I don't have that kind of imagination. But if I did, no, I don't think anybody would believe it. They said, although this is too crazy. And I have to say, when we were doing the reporting, there were some sequences in their scenes. And Rachel and I were reporting on this. And she would report to me and I would say, you know, wait a minute.

No, no, no, no. That can't be right. You know, we need a double, triple, quadruple check this. And then it did turn out to be right. Our jaws kept dropping. Well, you had such great detail in the book. Detail from adversaries, detail from friends, detail from family members. I mean, it was just literally an incredible rendition of what can go on when things run amok.

And I remember Subna Redstone quite well. I'm going to set the scene for you. I was a 28-year-old cell side institutional salesperson. person at Goldman Sachs and Sumner Redstone had come in to make a presentation. And I remember being riveted by him because he was a Harvard Law School. Graduate, I had gone to Harvard Law School. And we were raising him money to begin the process of the consolidation of that Viacom Empire. And then ultimately the very famous scene a couple years later when he bought Paramount and he bested Barry Diller, which obviously made the empire what it ultimately became. But let's start

there, if you don't mind. Maybe one of the last of the old-time moguls. Who is Sumner Redstone? Well, Sumner Redstone at his peak was certainly one of, if not the, wealthiest and most powerful media moguls of his day and probably of all time. I mean, Forbes put his fortune at close to $15 billion at one point. He controlled major publicly traded companies. CBS, obviously very well-known. And Viacom, the owner of very well-known cable channels, MTV, Comedy Central, a whole slew of important media ventures. So he had an enormous influence over, you know, how and what Americans and people all over the world consumed in the way of media and entertainment, including everything from the news at CBS to, you know, cartoons and comedy. So he was very, very powerful. And you refer to his takeover of Paramount.

He beat out Barry Diller to win the bidding war for that. If you'd ask him, he might have said that was the high point of his life. He never stopped talking about that, how he beat Barry Diller, who was his own legend in the media world, to get Paramount. And it was part of his ruthless ambition to always win if there was a contest, whether it was on the tennis court with his own daughter, who insisted on beating him was furious, she beat him, to besting somebody in the financial world to take over these assets. You could wonder, like, well, did he? overpay. I mean, he was going to pay whatever it took to win, but he did benefit from the extraordinary surge of success in revenue and profits in the cable world, which until a few years ago was probably the most lucrative business model ever conceived. Yeah. Yeah, and it was a recurring business model.

I had very stable cash flow. That's why guys like Mario Gabelli, who you have in the book and others, John Malone, were big investors in that business. There's a great story about Redstone. It's well known, but I'd like you to retell it here for our podcast listeners. He's caught in the Copley Plaza Hotel. Yes. And there's a fire set the scene for us. I believe it's 1979, and he's got to save himself. How does he do it?

Yeah, this was a formative experience in his adult life, no question about it. He was staying at the Copley Plaza. A fire broke out on his floor. It invaded in his room. The only way out was through the window. He went out through the window. There was nowhere to go. He was hanging by his hands from the window.

The flames are licking out of the window. One of its hands, he got off. Now he's hanging by one hand, and it was badly, badly burned. But he hung on there until the fire department rescued him. They did surgery, but his hand never really covered. It was disfigured for the rest of his life. That gave him this sort of sense of invincibility. He would sometimes refer to this.

Look, if he survived that, he would survive it. And he went around in his later years saying, I'm never going to die. I'm eternal, you know, which, you know, obviously. He couldn't really believe that, but that was the message he wanted to put out there. Now, not known until decades later after this incident in the hotel room with him was his then mistress. She escaped out the window beforehand, was able to get away before the flames caught her. And that too was a clue to the rest of his life because having, you know, by his own account,

never even dated in high school, college at Harvard, which he graduated in record time, Harvard Law School, believe me, he started. making up for lost time in his adult life. Yes, well, there's no question about that. It's seminal for many reasons, but I'm going to test something on you because we both have dealt with Miguelomaniacs over our lifetimes, and you've seen them in the business setting, the political setting. Some people are so brazen and have such hutspa and are so bold that they can manifest

their lives. Is some of the redstone an example of that? Well, he definitely had a very strong willpower, no question about it. And, you know, you didn't want to get in his way. By the way, quality that I think his daughter, Sherry, inherited and figures very prominently in the story. He had very strong willpower, but I don't know that I would go that far. There was some self-awareness on his part. And one of his confidants, if you want to call her that, told us that all this business is about never wanting to die, in part. was because he said, one of his lines was, oh, I am going to go to hell. I know I'm going to go to hell anyway, so I might as well do whatever I want now. And he feared this reckoning. He feared death. He feared that he was going to be called to account for the many bad things he did. And he did do a lot of bad things. But I do give him credit for at least being aware of it. Some of these people, I think you described, never seem to have any sense of what kind of impression they're making on other people or other people are reacting. No remorse, no conscience, no ability to say, okay, hey, I don't want to do that. You know, there's obviously a very famous scene in Dante's Inferno where the ninth circle of hell is a frozen lake. It's where Lucifer lives who betrayed God. He's down there with two people.

What did Dante say? The worst thing that you could do on this planet, according to Dante, was betray a friend. And so who lives with the angel Lucifer in the ninth circle? It's Judas, who's the metaphor for the betrayal of your God or your religion, your conscience. or Brutus, who is the betrayer of the state, somebody that's a traitor to their own country. And Sumner Redstone did not seem like he had many morals, frankly, but he did seem like he had this guilt-ridden thing. You tell this amazing story.

It's the 2009 Milken Conference, and he's taking every antioxidant known to man. That's what he said. And he's going to keep himself alive. It's hard not to think of succession with Logan Roy when I read it. But Logan Roy has nothing on Sumner. Redstone. Would you agree with that? Well, I deliberately did not watch Succession until I'd finished writing the book because I didn't want it even subliminally, you know, affecting, because other people were saying, oh, this book sent, well, you're working on sounds a lot like that show's

succession. So I waited. And then I have watched it since then. And I, you know, I'm laughing it up. It's a, it's a great show. But you're right. I mean, I don't know. The qualities of Sumner are so extreme. You're right. Logan Roy has nothing on Sumner. Sumner is, is, pretty brazen in particular. I mean, first of all, Sumner, he chose through various executives who work for him, and that's probably not all that different from Logan Royal. You don't see Logan Roy firing a whole lot of people. But anyway, so Sumner got rid of, like, you know, various CEOs until the very end when he mysteriously did not. That's another story. But he also, he ran through these women, you know, the mistresses, the wives, you know, the young women to the point towards

the end. And I don't think succession would dare go here. But you've got Sumner hitting on his grandson's girlfriend and snatching them away from him. Yeah. Why would the girlfriend, a beautiful, you know, model, whatever he's dating, want to go with the 92-year-old grandfather? Well, how about, you know, you throw a few million dollars to sweeten the deal. And yeah, they did it. He stood on his wallet, obviously, and he was a lethario as a result of standing on his

wallet. The child of one of his mistresses, was that his? Well, that's one of the mysteries. Because you talk about the fertility clinic where the couple who ended up breaking up, they go to the fertility clinic and then the, I mean, I'm going to be a little graphic here, but it is my podcast. The fertility specialist says, well, we could use a needle to go into your penis down into your testicle to take the sperm like we did with the old man.

With the old man, exactly. It very much, there is certainly strong evidence in eyewitness testimony in our book that, yes, that they went to the fertility clinic, that they probably did. take sperm from some nerve. But what I cannot take the next step to say that that sperm actually conceived the child. But I will say that, you know, many people, first of all, the child was named, her middle name was red. Yeah. And many people thought, oh, well, that's an obvious reference to Redstone. And she had his hair coloring, red also. And many people thought there was a resemblance. It's not, you know, it's with a child, you know, looking like a parent or not.

I mean, that's, you know, who knows what they're going to be like when they grow up. Right. That's all I can say. Readers are going to have to make their own minds. I had to ask because that was one of the open questions as I was closing the book. That was one of my open questions. Let me just say the final evidence is the child, Alexander Red, was in his will. Even though he had a huge disastrous breakup with the child's mother, he kept the child in his

will. So I leave it to readers to infer what they want from that. No, it's interesting. Listen, I mean, the guy was, there's a, there's a tragedy going on here in terms of dealing with the elderly as well. And so we're in an age of cancelizations. I'm going to be very sensitive with this, but I'm going to frame it for you and ask you to react to it. So he's elderly. You write about his crying jags in the book where he gets overly sensitized. Some of his nurses feel that there's some elder abuse. But then you have his. middle-aged children or his middle-aged daughter in particular trying to figure out a way to protect him from the shenanigans that he's doing. And I guess the question I have for you is for all

concerned family members out there where you could have a eccentric father or a patrician getting taken advantage of by young women or maybe not. Maybe he's taking advantage of them. What do you say to all that? What's your reaction to like I was reading that saying, Jesus, if this was my dad, what the hell would I do in a situation like this? It's not much, right? It's not much you can do. Is there, James? No, I'm glad you brought this up because I do feel this is a very significant part of the book.

And anyone who has an aging parent who has lived with an aging parent has tried to take care of an aging parent is going to be able to relate to this. When you see clearly, it's very unemptly documented in the book that Sumner was no longer at his peak, either physically or mentally. He was substantially impaired in both respects. And that made him very vulnerable to emotional and other influences. And these two women, one of them supposedly his fiancé, she did have this giant diamond ring. The other former girlfriend moved in there and started cutting him off from everyone else and

insinuating themselves into the will, into the trust funds. Getting money, living money, living money, like living will money too, though, right? Money. Yeah, well, you know, they made him sell his CBS stock. And one afternoon, he did wire transfer. They walled him off. And he did wire transfers to them of $90 million in one afternoon. And we document that they made out with at least $150 million from him.

And they were so close to taking over the whole company, which is another fascinating story that a lot of people don't realize. So here's the daughter. So the nurses, they filed an elder abuse complaining with the Los Angeles authorities. And they started emailing and texting, share his. daughter to tell her things that were going on in the mansion. And she said, like, at some point, she said, this is too painful, Mary. I can't really deal this. Well, you deal with my son and her son, Tyler, took over that mission. And that's what really drew Sherry back into the story and gets the plot in motion. She didn't really want to run his media empire or even be involved. He treated her

horribly his whole life. And yet, she loved him. Yeah. I mean, and that's another important part of this story, I think. It's a family saga. The Scaramucci's have a motto, the scaramuji, is let's put the fun in the word dysfunctional. You know what I mean? You can have very dysfunctional relationships, but what are you going to do? You still love your family members, right? I think that's one of the big issues here that she was struggling with. I'm going to switch gears, want to talk about less Moonvez for a second. He's a Long Islander like me. He's from Rockville Center. He was an actor, had a, let's call it a mediocre career as an actor, but he had a wonderful eye for talent and programming and so forth. Tell us a little bit

about your observation of Les Moonvez, and we can get into the situation with the LA police captain that worked for him, et cetera, but tell us your observation of him. Well, Les Moonvez was the chairman and chief executive of CVS when it was owned by Somna Redstone, and he was phenomenally successful in that role. As you point out, he had a great eye for casting. He was intimately involved. He read the scripts. He had somehow this golden gut for hits. He put many hits on the air. He took CBS from the fourth-ranked network to the number one network where it stayed year after year after year. I mean, a phenomenal run. The Hollywood reporter named the most powerful man in entertainment one year. But he had this dark secret, which caught up with him when the Me Too movement started to unfold.

And that brought him into conflict with Sherry, who was beginning to reassert her. in the Redstone Empire and ultimately led to his downfall. But on the way, again, to me, one of the most astonishing things in the books, and we have it documented in a trove of like emails and texts and interview notes and transcripts of interviews. He didn't really get fired because of the assault he made on various women. It was more the cover up, which I could get into. But, you know, going back to who he was, one of the things that I found so sort of surprising

about this is Mudevaz was. was a very handsome guy. He was rich, he was rich and he was powerful. Now, if he really wanted to go out with various women, there was no shortage. I mean, look, he was no Harvey Weinstein. He was popular. He was well-locked. He was amiable, charming. And yet, there is this Achilles heel that obviously we now know, you know, some men have. It's like they don't want to go out with women who would agree to it. They have to go for the ones that won't or something. I mean, look, I'm not a psychiatrist about this. But, you know, and it proved his downfall, but there were, you know, multiple instances and people went on the record we interviewed. And one of the worst examples was

when he at an early morning meeting with his diabetes doctor. And he, you know, in the examination room, he, you know, pounces on her and then proceeds to do some things that even your show, Anthony, I probably can't go into the graphic details. But they're mad. I don't want to ruin the whole book. I want people that listen to Open Book to go out and buy the book. I mean, it's just so fascinating. So, no, I don't want to get into all of that. But I just want to set the stage for these things. You've got parent, children dynamic, grandparents, grandchildren dynamic.

You have a corporate dynamic going on. You have an elderly person that I'm going to be very blunt here. Probably didn't get laid a lot in high school. And so now he's taking it out on the rest of us. He's sort of the revenge of the nerve. And yet through all of this, you have this very successful media conglomerate, right? And so I guess the question is it was being undermanaged by people, not less Moonbiz. Perhaps he was quite talented, but it was working anyway.

Is that not fair to say, James? Well, to an extent, as in his declining years, Sumner's, you know, vigilant oversight of his top managers began to falter. He was very loyal to them, unlike the previous ones he fired. MoonVist still was doing very well at CBS. CBS was doing very well, although, you know, the streaming wars were just starting to begin and that they were casting a shadow over that CBS earnings model. And by then the Viacom properties, including the Paramount Studio and the various cable channels, were in a significant downward spiral.

That had terrible management. You know, Philippe Des Moines, who was the CEO of Viacom, and was often referred to as a surrogate son to Sumner. And from all appearances, he was, which was another dimension in the family drama, Sumner just would not remove him. He was very loyal to him. He did treat him like the son. It was his real son.

He drove away. So he hung on way too long. And today, after all, the dust settled and, you know, Sherry finally emerged and put these companies back together in one, even now, the world has changed. drastically. And the old models are deteriorating. The streaming wars are heating up. And I think they're very, most people, you know, investors and analysts on Wall Street feel that today, something further is going to have to happen because they don't have paramount global, which is what the company is now called big as it is. And it has a lot of hits and successes.

It's still not big enough to compete within an Amazon, Netflix and Disney. So it's a potential takeover target, right? I mean, if it can get through an FTA. Yeah, it's a takeover or merger. By the way, Warren Buffett has taken a big stake in it, which is one thing to prop the stock up. Right. But I think that's because, you know, many people think there's going to be a deal in the future that will be lucrative for the paramount shareholders. What do you think Redstone himself would be thinking about the company, the stock price, the fact that a company like his could be taken over at this time? What do you think he would be thinking?

Well, he never wanted to be taken over. Right. And what finally did caused the rupture with Phillies. was when Philippe casting about for ways to try to get the stock price up, and, you know, not to mention his own, you know, compensation and bonuses, was trying to sell off a big chunk of the Paramount Studio. And that was a big misjudgment. He may have thought that Sumner was too far gone to fight him on that. But it was, you almost see like Sumner levitating from his sickbed to block that. And that's, that proved to be Philipp's downfall. But he didn't, he never wanted to give up an asset. He didn't want to sell. He always wanted to be a buyer. He would be on the prowl. I suspect, to find something to buy. Yeah, to buy underneath him to make it bigger as opposed to him going into something else, right? Yeah, I mean, that's his, that's his ammo. Borrow, spend, outbid, get bigger.

How do you, when you step back and you look at our world, in this book, we have overt sexism. We have overt misogyny. Overt. But we also know, because you and I have, unfortunately, have been around the block enough times that we do have it in other industries. We have it on Wall Street. We have it in most industries. There's a Me Too movement out there to try to quell or put down some of that. But it exists.

And is the Me Too movement really that successful, James? Or are we just under the surface of the Me Too movement having all of this sort of activity happening anyway? Well, I was certainly surprised when I saw the evidence in this book at how strong the misogyny and the discrimination against. women at the board levels, at the executive. Even with Sherry Redstone herself, as you point out in the book, you know, she's mis-treated. Yes. I mean, the directors, and we have so much incriminating evidence here, you know, they'd say

one thing publicly, but then privately to each other, they'd be sending these texts and emails. In fact, somebody, some reader told me, like, no CEO's ever going to write another text again after reading this because there, you see what they're really thinking. And it's, you know, it's pretty appalling. And, you know, the Me Too movement's in full swing here. Yes. I, you know, look, the Me Too movement has made some gains.

It's no question about it. They're more women directors. There still aren't a lot of women top executives, but it is a long way to go. And you're right. You know, look, we dealt deeply to this company, but look at McDonald's where there's, you know, they've had scandals in the CEO suite and problems with women. And that's about as part land of companies you're ever going to find. So I think it's pretty widespread. And again, it was surprising to me how little. And another thing we discovered, you know, we interviewed lots of women, including one who. describe being assaulted by Sumner Redstone. And these women that we, I few of them went on the record and names are in there, but a lot of them right now, I mean, like within the last year, we're afraid to have their names in there to be publicly identified for fear that their careers would be ruined and damaged. I was surprised that that hasn't changed that much. You know, to hear some people talk about it, it's like, you know, the sisterhood of the victims have come together and they're, you know, they're having, they're, you know, rushing to be on

network television. No. We found that they're still afraid of retaliation and feel that if they are blowing a whistle or making these kinds of allegations. Oh, yeah. No, they get they get kicked out of the reindeer games and then they lose their ability to make money. It's happening everywhere. What was the one thing when you finished your manuscript? What was the one thing that you had learned about Sumner Redstone that prior to your research you didn't know? Well, I learned I learned a lot, believe me, some of which I maybe would just as soon not have known. Which you had un-warned. But look, here's something that I think is really important.

It's kind of almost biblical. Two prongs to it. One, you know, here he is. He's so wealthy. He's so powerful. He's surrounded by high-price lawyers, advisors, tax people, planners. And it's a mess. It's all that money and power didn't protect him. And the corollary to that is he was always, he was afraid of this, Reckoning, but here's where it gets biblical. I think he got his, he didn't have to die to get his

reckoning. He got his final reckoning in those last years of his life. Now, there's a cautionary tale thing for everybody. You think you're not going to pay the price until, you know, you're dead and gone and, you know, you meet your maker. No, a lot of this happens right here and this world. I absolutely saw that. The money, I think money can enhance happiness, you know, nobody wants to be poor, but money doesn't buy it. If you don't have it independent of the money, you don't think the money is going to get it. I mean, he got all that money and he drove his family away. He drove the people away who loved him.

And then he was very vulnerable and isolated in those final years. Yeah, no, listen, I mean, I don't know who said it, but I'll paraphrase the quote, if you can't enjoy your morning coffee, just sitting there in the simplicity of the coffee and drinking it, you're not going to enjoy the yacht. Okay, you're going to be dissatisfied. There's nothing about the money that's going to make it different for you. And the happiness comes from the inside. You're so right.

So we go to our authors and I come up with five words or five subjects. I ask our authors for sort of a quick fire, few-word reaction. Okay. And so I want to fire these off to you. Okay, ready? Shary Redstone. Loving and determined and constantly underest, underestimated and smarter than you might think. But ultimately, she's the survivor in this kind of

real life reality show. And she was right about a lot of things that she was ignored about. And if anyone, you know, can I think steer this empire into this treacherous future? She's the one to do it. I think she is kind of the hero of the story. I agree with you on that. Holland and Herzr. Well, I probably shouldn't say this. I kind of call them the flip side of the Me Too movement. You know, they were taking advantage of any question about it. There's ample evidence there. And let's don't pretend this doesn't happen elsewhere.

And it's, you know, it's been a time-honored path for some women. They preyed on an old man to get, extract money from the old man for their families. And they had a whole psychological design of walling them off from his loved ones. And, you know, you could say, look, they succeeded. They walk out of there with over $150 million. They're now, you know, described as self-described as quote, renowned philanthropists. They're on the boards of major prestigious institutions in LA. They go to the charity balls, the openings.

They're on the red carpet and designer clothes. Money buys those things, James. Money buys those things. You know, money, as you know, rich people can launder themselves through these charities, you know, and people have short-term memories. Less moon viz. A traffic figure, ultimately, so talented and with so many abilities, who had this fatal flaw in how he treated women.

And he, you know, again, he's really. rich too. But he's in disgrace and in isolation and that fatal fall in taking over the rest of his life. He could be a top of the world media mogul given his talent, but these indiscretions have cost them that. But I guess what I'm wondering is it's sort of like the madmen, you know, the 1960s mentality. I guess these guys didn't adapt to the times or maybe they got caught prior to the times adapting. Well, again, I'm not a psychologist, but I think there's the times, there's something about the risk-taking and the getting away with it and the thrill of them, I think, I guess. Yes, I think that's it. And how far can you go? And trust me, you'll see in this book,

it went really far. No, listen, I mean, I couldn't put the book down. Okay, last one, the name Redstone. Yes. Well, that was a made-up name. Their family name was actually Rothstein. Right. It makes a difference in name, though, James, no? It makes a difference. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I don't know. I, like, my name is Stewart. And, you know, we were always very proud of the fact that was a Scottish name and my father had a killed. And, you know, we had all kinds of, you know, Scottish lore and stuff like that. So we're proud of that. I would have felt bad if he changed our name away from Stewart. But I don't know. Was this because, you know, Rothstein was seen as a Jewish name?

Factually, he was too Jewish for Sumner Redstone. And he wanted to anglicize it, and he thought in that patrician world of Bostonians and Brahms, it was going to help him. And perhaps it did. You know, it's just an interesting thing that people do as they're trying to morph themselves in life. Okay, my last question, sir, speaking of stock prices, I want you to comment if you don't mind on Disney. I think one of your other great books is Disney War, which looks at the whole essence of Disney to the declared war on Michael Eisner, the stress and strain of it. The Bass Brothers were there in that book. I mean, you had everything going on in that book.

corporate intrigue, corporate takeover, evolution. Of course, Bob Eiger is now back at Disney. I know. Disney's been caught in the mouse trap of Ron DeSantis and some of the things that have gone on in the culture wars. What do you think happens to Disney? What do you think of Disney? Well, look, Disney's a fascinating story. I saw people that said you have to do Disney War II. I don't know about that. But Disney is caught in some of the major seismic shifts here that are affecting all the big media companies. It's trying to deal with the shift from streaming. And, you know, I think a lot of people didn't realize how important the cable revenues were to Disney, especially ESPN. That was just an unbelievable profit center and cash cow for them for so long. And that whole cable model is

deteriorating. So that's been pulling, you know, revenue and profits away while they've been having to spend so heavily. And what brought Iger back was a quarter where they lost, you know, a billion four in one quarter, most of it on, you know, program from streaming service. The bigger the Disney Plus got, the more money they lost. It's supposed to be going the other way. There are some significant structural challenges there. And it's puzzling to me in a way that Iger would want to go back at a time. He left with Sterling reputation. Yes.

He did a fabulous job there. Some great mergers, the Marvel Studios, Star Wars, some Lucasfilm. Great mergers. But then he took on all that debt. You know, he got into a costly bidding war for the Fox assets. Comcast leaped in there for some of that. A lot of people think he overpaid. He got a proxy challenge from Nelson Peltz, which he's rolled back at the moment.

But Peltz was saying that was a terrible. deal. There's all that debt on the balance sheet at a time when they need to spend, spend more. And, you know, he's in there trying to write the ship. It's a tall order. Now, the stock got down to about $80. You know, and at that point, I think it's a value play that went up when he came back. But now it's been trending down to get down in the low 90s today, I think. And I think there's a, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty about, they're up against, you know, Amazon and, well, Netflix, but especially Amazon is so huge. And they're going to spend until there's a handful of survivors here.

Will Disney be there and be able to raise the prizes? They're talking about that. But I think the jury's very much out on that. Well, it's a fascinating story. They've also up against it with the culture war in terms of the positioning in Florida. They lost that sort of free business zone that was created for them for Walt Disney to move to Florida. I think that was a huge mistake by the governor, by the way.

I think there's a proto-fascism element to that. that. He should have left the business alone, and now he's going to exert his political will on businesses. I think that is a very bad tell for the country if we're going in that direction, but that's just my two cents. What's next for you, sir? Well, I'm working on some more good stories at the times. I did a big piece. I'm not really a media entertainment reporter per se, but I did a giant piece on AT&T's management of the Warner assets, and that was a disaster. I mean, AT&T burned through, they burned through about $100 billion. shareholder capital on that before bailing out. But I love doing longer stories. I love working

to times, but I love doing books. And I like to think I've still got another book or two in me. I'm poking around about something. If I could get some sourcing breakthrough, I think I have something that would be pretty dramatic, but it would be it would be premature to say anything more about it right now. Okay. Well, you're a great writer. I love your byline, but I love your books more. The title of this book, Brand New, Unscripted, The Epic Battle for a Media, Empire and the Redstone family legacy. What a legacy that is. Huge congratulations to you and Rachel Abrams for putting this book together. It is a New York Times bestseller. It is riveting. And I appreciate you coming on an open book today. Thank you. Thanks. Great interview. Really enjoyed it.

Unscripted was unputed downable. It was literally one of the best stories that I've read. And it was all true. And it was well documented. As James pointed out, he had literal text message. exchanges between the protagonist and antagonists in this book. Unbelievable drama. And so therefore, you know, I'm all over it. I'm a little bit of a gossiper myself. But there's nothing like a James Stewart read. Read Disney War as an example or Den of Thieves. This book unscripted. They all tell real human stories with all of our frailties, all the trials, and all of our tribulations. and there's nothing like a 90-plus-year-old man in love with himself, but in love with sex more. I mean, what could be more fun than that?

So anyway, go pick up the book. All right, Mike, you ready for the show today? What show? Well, I'm going to put you back on the podcast. You ready? You know, you liked it. All right? I tell people you used to call it the cash pod.

Do you remember when I started doing it? You were calling it the cash pod as opposed to the podcast. Let me ask you a question while I got you here, okay? Do you like the gossip? Do I like to gossip? Not overly dumb. No, you don't like the gossip. You're on the phone all day.

You literally... I don't gossip about people in a derogatory way. I talk about it in a pleasant way. Okay, you talk about it in a pleasant way. Okay, you like people. You want people to do well, right? Yes, I go. Absolutely.

And I like company in my house, it's always on. And you like company. I like people in my house. Right. Did you read any of the stuff about the Redstone family with the 95-year-old man that was chasing the young women? trying to have sex with them? No.

No. Did you? Yeah, I read the whole book. I was wondering if you read about it. What do you think of men like that? I'm a little crazy, though, no? They're trying to recapture their youth, but they can never get it back. Okay, but that's why they do that sort of stuff? Yes, they're cuckoo.

All right? But mostly men are like this, though, in your opinion. Right now, women? Some women are. Some women are. Not as much as men, but some are. Men and women are different. They wrote a book on it.

All right. What is the big difference between men and women? Well, they're very close to their children and the men go out and work and earn a living, but the mother, mothers, the children, if they're good. If they're good. But there are mothers that leave their kids because there was one in my family indirectly. All right, but let's not bring up too much dirty laundry, Mom. We could bring it up.

Everyone knows the Scaramucci family motto was, let's put the fun back in the word dysfunctional. Everybody knows that. So let me ask you a question, Ma. When people are worth a lot of money, sometimes, they get crazy with their power, right? Like they think that they're better than other people, right? Or no? Not all the time.

I think it depends on the person. I know that my father had a lot of money when I was growing up, and my mother knew how to spend it. He used to try to hold on to it, but he couldn't hold on to it too well because my mother used to give it to the immigrant friends that came over here. Okay, but I'm talking about like really rich people, you know, like people that are worth like millions and millions of dollars, you know, billionaires and stuff like that. You run into some of them that think that they're high and mighty, right?

Or no? Yeah, but usually they came from nothing and they become like that. Because if you're born into money, you get used to it. You think it makes you nuts sometimes if you come from nothing and then have a lot of money. Absolutely. Then that becomes like a power play to the people that are doing to survive. So you think the money's made me nuts, ma, or no? You can tell me.

Absolutely not. I think that you're a wonderful son and that you give to people that need it. But you think some people act crazy with their money and they can get very dramatic, right? Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. When you're gossiping with your friends, Mom, what do you mean? I'm funny. You know you gossip.

I mean, the phone, like, Ma, you have call waiting on your phone and when I call, it's busy, which means you're operating both switches of the call waiting. You're literally talking to two people like it's Grand Central Station. Am I wrong? I like people. I'm very fortunate. I have a lot of friends. You know, I have a handful that are friends forever that I grew up with.

And I have new acquaintances who have become friends. All right. But when you're gossiping, what's some of the juicy gossip? Like, what are you like talking about the most? The boyfriends that you like your 85-year-old friends have or like what? Yes. Mm-hmm. You're going to go into that.

Yeah. Oh, but you're 86 and you're ready to go, right? I've been told I don't look 86, so I feel very flattered when I get told that. Okay. What do they tell you? How old do you look, Mom? What do they say to you? Sometimes I pass for like 72, 74.

I did that pass 68. 68? Wow, the guy's really making the move when he says 68, right? Right. Right. Mm-hmm. All right. Italians love drama, ma, or no, we like the drama or we don't like the drama?

Well, I think I've had enough drama. We all have it. We've all had it. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listen. 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 to chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter. It's also at Scaramucci on Instagram. You can text me at plus one, 911, 909-2996. I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see on our show next. I'll see you back here next week.