Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Is the F-35 the Last Manned Fighter? Tom Burbage & Betsy Clark Tell All

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

With the recent crash of the F-35 fighter jet in South Carolina, Anthony talks with Tom Burbage, former president of the Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Company and EVP for the USAF F-22 Raptor and the F-35, and Betsy Clark, a member of the F-35 review team for the US Department of Defense. Their new book F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightening II is the only inside look at what is still considered the most advanced and controversial aircraft in the world. Tom and Betsy reveal just how powerful the aircraft is, it’s many abilities – and what’s next.  To find out more about the book and the F-35 itself, visit: www.f35insidestory.com 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. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures 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. The F-35 fighter jet has come to the forefront of media attention recently as an aircraft was found missing over South Carolina. On today's show, I get the inside story of the most expensive and controversial military program in history from those that lived it. There's obviously a lot of information that remains classified, but Tom and Betsy's insights are as close as we can get to understanding this fifth-generation fighter and what's next. So joining us now on Open Book, Tom Burbage and Betsy Clark. What a great book. The title of the book is F-35, the inside story of the Lightning 2. We're going to get into that whole thing. It's great to have you both on. We have some of the most amazing fighter jets in the world, but I want to go to our history of fighter jets, if you don't mind. The 25th anniversary of Saving Private Ryan, the premiere of it. It came out on. July 24th, 1998. I forced my young children to watch it. I am named after my uncle Anthony was a serviceman. He was 19 years old when he hit Omaha Beach. He was actually on Utah Beach in the Army

Corps of Engineers and survived the battle, but four days later was wounded in one of the towns in France. Survived that. He was allowed to go home, but he told, he told them he didn't want to go home. He ended up in Potsdam. And my mother has a picture. of him and Harry Truman as a private, as a delegation of wounded servicemen that took a picture with President Truman at Potsam. The reason I'm bringing this up to you guys is that, you know, my family, these men, they served in the Army, my dad served in the Army. I didn't serve in the Army, but I've been on a lot of troop support missions. I've been on our aircraft carriers, our salt carriers and so forth. But we just had this amazing history in the country.

Tell us a little bit about the fighter jet history before we get into the F-35. Well, I can start that out, Betsy. That's all right. You know, early fighters were guys with pistols that happened to be able to get into the air, and they were shooting at each other without a lot of accuracy. And then the history of air power, and I think it was pretty well proven that if you have airpower, you have a significant strategic advantage in any conflict because you're above the fray, and you can bring the fight into the fray. And the technology of the evolution of fighters has been kind of interesting.

You know, early on they were always propeller-driven, and you had the problem of trying to shoot through a propeller, often shooting off the propeller. And then they were able to move on a bi-wing type airplane. You can move the gun up above the propeller and basically shoot over it, but you had quite a distance between your aiming eye and the barrel of the gun, so it wasn't much accuracy. And then they came up with a couple of interesting inventions. One was synchronizing the actual ammunition coming out of the gun with the propeller,

believe it or not. You could shoot through a propeller. And then I think it was the French that came up with a metal-coated propeller, that if you happened to hit the propeller, it wouldn't actually blow it off so you lose your propulsion system, but it often reflected the bullets back to the pilot. So that wasn't all that great either. So we went through that whole stage and more and more emphasis on maneuverability. A airplane that could turn inside and get behind the other guy had an advantage. And of course, then along came missiles. And missiles sort of took that fight

to a different level because sort of opened up a longer range engagement. And as all this was happening, the air defense systems were becoming more and more sophisticated and the ability to penetrate, not just another air adversary, but penetrate into heavily defended areas and actually take out a strategic target became very problematic, which resulted in the beginning of the F-117 Nighthawk program many years ago. And of course, those airplanes were built in under secrecy. Very few of them were actually built, I think 89 total, but they did some things that were never talked about or advertised much and very effective in a radar-type environment. That's evolved as the aerodynamic technology can now recreate the maneuverability of a fighter and retain all those stealth characteristics

that cause compromises in the early days. And we've progressed through the F-22 and now the F-35. And with the F-35, you bring in the whole internet phenomena of connectivity. You know, you're looking in a, sitting in F-35, you're looking at a big screen TV like you have in your hotel room and you're watching the movie. You're not watching your sensors. So the whole evolution of software. The F-35, though, I mean, what an incredible piece of machinery, Betsy. So, Brief me. Pretend that I don't know anything about aviation and you're telling me why we need an F-35 and what's so special about it. So the F-35 was designed, first of all, let's go back. We fight as allied forces with our friendly nations and we have for many, many conflicts. And so the plane was designed right from the beginning to basically, you can think of it as an information node in a network.

And so it shares tactical data. So it's information about the battlefield. What are threats? What are friendly? What air defenses does your enemy have, et cetera? That is all shared with your allied. It has an incredible degree of sensor integration on the plane. It's really been described as artificial intelligence.

So it tells that it really can identify for the pilot what's out there. Where's it going? It just has that capability. Another amazing thing about it, there are six infrared cameras. They're mounted around that aircraft. And the results of the camera are actually, they're projected onto the visor of the pilot. This is a $400,000 helmet. But it just does all of the work for the pilot in terms of really identifying what's out there

and correlating all that information. And then sharing it with other platforms, both the 35, other aircraft in the air, on the land, on sea, space, everything. So the information sharing is amazing. That's just situational awareness. Another thing about the F-35 is it is stealthy. So it is virtually impossible to see on radar, also infrared sensors, anything like that. So the idea of the F-35 was to be able to go into contested airspace in a very stealthy mode,

carry out the mission and get out. So survivability was very important as well. And all of that was thought out very early. And then another big part of it is they brought in, in addition to the U.S., eight partner countries. So these were our closest allies who were invited to join. They paid into the development. They had a seat at the table, very much involved. They were embedded into the government program office. And, you know, I think the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, The U.S. did that very well. Just the whole thing was the way we fight combats now is an allied force, and it was designed to do that. It does that very, very well.

Tom, do you want to add anything else that's special about it? It is the next generation in terms of the ability to move information as well as the ability to have the characteristics of stealth and survivability. So you summarized it well. A couple years back, 60 minutes, I know you guys just want to address it for people. some of the pilots were complaining in the beginning part of the program of air sickness or some levels of disorientation. What was that from and how do they fix that problem? That was more on the F-16, F-22 era because the F-35 wasn't out there in numbers yet, but the ability of the airplane to generate oxygen for the pilot has gone through an evolution

of technology also. And there was some concern that there was some shortcomings in that system where the pilot could actually become drowsy or unaware of its surroundings. But it hasn't really been a problem in the F-35 as much as it was in the early days. There was also a physiology issue when you get into these new airplanes that are very high G-forces on the pilot and very high speed, and they use pressure breathing where oxygen is actually forced into the pilot's physiology. Those things were all sort of new and needed to go through some understanding and maturation before they became, you know, what they are today. So, Tom, you have three different versions of this plane, right? You have one for the

Navy, one for the Air Force, and the Marines. What are the differences? And why is that necessary? What drove the differences in the airplane were the operational environments that the airplane had to come from or come back to land on? So the Air Force uses long runways, land-based. Marine Corps has the assault carriers that you mentioned earlier on in the opening, no catapults on the resting years, so the airplane has to be able to come back and land vertically. It can, takeoff vertically, but that's not an operational, meaningful configuration because you're carrying weapons and fuel and a lot of heavy stuff. So short takeoff, vertical landing. And then the third one was the Navy version, which had to be able to slow down. So it needed a bigger wing and had to be

able to withstand the forces of catapults and arresting gear. So structurally, the three are different for those different operating environments. But if I put them side by side and I told you to get into them, you wouldn't know which one you're in. When you're in the cockpit, they're the same. Yeah, as the same technology. No, no. I mean, they're exactly the same. So the differences were driven by the operational environment, the airplane was supposed to come from. Betsy, the critics have said that the plane is too expensive.

The technology is unnecessary. You guys do a good job of refuting that. Explain to our viewers and listeners why this is such a valuable piece of our arsenal. First of all, on the cost, the number of transformational, new technology. technologies that are in that plane is mind-blowing. All kinds of things. And we go through that in the book. So there was a lot of new things that that's expensive. And it's cutting edge technology. Secondly, in terms of danger, that aircraft never lost a plane during flight testing. And it had an extensive flight testing program. I think more than any other program, because it was testing three

variants. So I think its safety record is absolutely unmatched. And then again, the need for what the capabilities are, just the way that we fight combat now with allied forces and sharing information is just, and that's key. And so what's happened before, if you go into combat with different sorts of aircraft, what's called interoperability, it's the ability to share information. I'm not talking about voice communication. I'm talking about tactical data of what's out there in terms of threats, friends, foes, air defenses, all of that kind of thing. Right from the beginning, the F-35 was designed to share that with our allies. So everybody has a common picture of what the battlefield is, and that is just so, so important.

And I can tell you, like, just a country like Australia, where I am, they do have the F-35 now. They are designing their entire defense force around that fifth generation capability, meaning that all of that communication, they are putting into place with all of their other, you know, land, air, sea platforms. And it's just transformed their whole defense force. And I'm sure Australia is not the only one doing it. So that capability is just, it is just so, so critical now. If you know what's out there in the battle space, you can control the battle space, especially when you can get in a stealthy mode and get out. That is so important. You know, Tom, since 2017, we've been seeing these videos,

naval aviation videos of what they're now calling UAPs. You and I are old enough to know, they used to call them UFOs, or we watch these things move. You know, they don't look technologically real. And, you know, again, they may be ours or they may be an adversary. Some people are suggesting that they're extra. terrestrial. My question to you, sir, in your time as an aviator, did you ever see anything like that? And what's your opinion of the stuff that they've been showing us on the news?

I don't know. I really don't. I never saw anything like that. I think there's some laws of physics that are required to operate inside our atmosphere and inside our, you know, our Earth structure. Certainly we have never, we, you know, human beings and the Earth have never broken the laws of physics before. I think there are phenomena out there. I know, a lot of the classified testing that goes on, a lot of it goes on at night, and it has lights associated with it. If you go to the UFO capital of the world, it's Roswell, New Mexico, and right over the mountains there are the secret test sites for the Air Force and for the skunk works and places like that. So I wouldn't be surprised that people had seen some unexplained, you know,

activity related to that. I've seen the videos. I haven't seen anything that looks like it's current or anything that looks like it's in focus. So I don't know whether it's a detection issue or whether there actually is another form of life out there. I just don't know. But I never saw any instances of that when I was on active duty. Betsy, be a military planner for us for a moment. We talk about this integration with our allies.

It's fascinating, right? We're sharing technology. We're getting some technology from them. They're getting some technology from us. We've sort of like open source the aviation, avionics, if you will, of the F-35. Where are we in 10 years? Let's say we're out in 2032. Do you predict more integration?

Do you predict less integrated? What do you think happens in terms of the way we plan these things going forward? Okay. And I'll let Tom take a crack at this as well. But what I see that's happening a lot with some people have said that the F-35 will be the last manned fighter. Don't know if that's true or not. But certainly one thing that we're seeing is the use of drones called loyal wingmen that can be controlled by the F-35. So I think we're going to see a lot more drones going in as well.

I think that's one place, one way that things are going. The capabilities, the F-35 was designed, I think, very well right from the beginning to continually be able to upgrade the computer systems, to be able to handle more software, which translates to more capability. A lot of that is classified, so it gets very hard to talk about, but it will continue to evolve. They've done an excellent job on that because that's what these aircraft do. They aren't just built, and then they stay that way for 40 or 50 years. They're continually evolving as threats change, then their ability to respond to the threats change. And I think that's definitely going to keep happening with the F-35.

It will keep, you know, it will keep in pace and hopefully ahead of whatever threats are out there. What do you think, Tau? The only thing I would add to that is that what you don't see when you see an airplane, like an F-22 or an F-35, is you don't see the propulsion, the power plant that's inside it. And that's a key to being able to evolve the airplane to do more and more things, primarily for its ability to generate power. You know, if you look at where things are going in terms of lasers and things that require a lot of power output, that all comes from the engine.

It draws power off the engine. So as we look for the next generation, I think it'll be, you'll see a lot of unmanned airplanes flying in formation with demand airplanes, primarily the F-35, I think you'll see a real push to try and increase the power generation capability of the power plant, which gets complicated, particularly for the Stovall airplane because you've got such a balancing act going on as these new weapons come out. So that'll be the evolution. And then when you talk about the revolution, where do you get revolutionary new technology? That's being explored. A lot of it's in the connectivity and software-related interoperability, those kind of things that are force magnifiers.

I guess this is a question for both of you. How worried are you about our adversaries being able to reverse engineer our technology and to replicate what we're doing? You know, obviously, you know, this was in the papers. I can talk about it. When the tail broke off from the seal team six rate in the bin Laden situation, you know, there was a lot of great technology that unfortunately our seals had to leave behind. They could only blow up a certain part of the aircraft, the helicopter. The tail was left on the other side of the wall. God only knows where that tail ended up, but are you worried about that? And what are the capabilities of our adversaries? Well, I'll take a stab of that first. I'd say that we fly and fight and have done so for about 40 years with our allies on our wing. And oftentimes they can fly and fight with us, and oftentimes they have to wait until the second week of the war until the threat has gone down because their airplanes are not as capable as ours. This experiment had to look at our closest allies, those that join us as the coalition of the Willis. following 9-11 and those kind of things. Those allies that are comfortable with flying with us as allies,

those were invited to join the program. Other countries that have gotten involved with the program since then have been more strategic allies that are important to us when we have to go form an alliance, let's say in the Pacific. So we have Japan and South Korea, Singapore, and Australia are the Pacific countries that are F-35 operators. And then when the U.S. carriers come in, that sort of balances that fleet. Interesting thing happened recently with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All of the northern European countries are now F-35, either operators or soon-to-be operators. And most of that, I think Finland, Switzerland, even Canada, who was an original partner, hadn't committed to buy F-35s, Germany, until that happened and all of a sudden conflict was right next door. So those countries can now

form a natural alliance around the Arctic, which is another very strategic place in the world right now, as it melts and we start opening sea lanes of communication. So I see the airplane in a very unique position as being the catalyst to form sort of a realliencing of the world, if you will, because there are operators that are flying it. The airplane does have protections that can prevent reverse engineering. A lot of the airplane that is not classified is the structural side, that's pretty common across the aerospace industry around the world. When you get into the software and some specific sensors, those are very much controlled by the

U.S. Yeah, you know, I've obviously, you know, I've been on some of our carriers. Yeah, Anthony, if I can add, so as Tom said that, you know, in terms of the physical characteristics, that can be seen. But the first aircraft, the first F-35 flew in 2005, I believe. So that came, that came with stealth and those important things. But the real powers in the sensors and in the software. So there is almost 10 million lines of code on that aircraft.

And for anybody in the software field, that is just a huge, amazing amount of software. By contrast, the F-22, which I did a review of that, had more around the $2 million, you know, that sort of order of magnitude. So it's software that drives us because it's really like artificial intelligence on that plane doing a lot of the work of the pilot in terms of what's out there. So that took, what, about 11 years just to come out with the initial operating capability, the Marines used it first, and then it has continued to evolve for the Air Force and then the Navy, and then the Marines upgraded as well. So the real powers in the software. And I think that would be

very, very difficult to reverse engineer, you know, because it's really what's loaded on the airplane is ones and zeros. It's not any kind of a human readable software. So I think that's a huge amount of the power. And so I don't worry about that. You know, I really haven't. Certainly, I think, China and Russia and maybe North Korea have tried to hack in. They wanted to know. But, yeah. Well, I was going to say that when I'd been on our aircraft carriers or even our submarines, when they give the civilians the tour, they put that tarp over certain areas.

You know, you really just don't want anybody to see the super sophisticated classified software awareness, technology that we have on some of these amazing pieces of weaponry. When you first started in the Air Force, Tom, first started flying. Where did you think we would be today? Are we ahead of where you thought we would be? Are we behind? Where did you think we would be from a technological perspective with our fighting jets? When I first started, which was quite a while ago, I recall a trip that I made. I went through the Navy Test Biles School of Pax River, and we went out on a field trip to the skunk works in California. And Ben Rich was the head of, you've probably heard of Ben Rich, was the head of the skunk works at the time. And he was briefing the group. We were young lieutenants in the Navy. And he talked about, you know,

we might be able to actually develop this invisible airplane. And nobody had a clue what he was talking about. And they were in the early days of doing the F-117. And later, as that came out of the closet, and we understood what he was really referring to. But I thought, well, how in the world would you do that, you know? Well, now they've been able to take that concept as vague as it is and basically embed it into a fully maneuverable. If you've seen an F-22 flying air show, it's dramatic, you know, the maneuverability the airplane has.

I think we're probably about where we should have expected to be. I think there are some that believe we maybe should be further ahead, but I'm not sure where that would have happened because these programs take so many resources and so many smart people to actually come out with a product that you can then mass produce and, you know, and populate the Air Forces and the Navy's with, that whole process is almost uniquely American. You know, I think if you look at the fifth generation, quote-unquote, adversary airplanes, they're not produced in numbers. They're small numbers over decades. So the ability to actually, you know, invest in and generate a supply chain. In the case of the

F-35, it's a multinational supply chain, it's not a U.S. supply chain. That's a uniquely American capability, and it's what keeps us strong in the air power world. So every podcast, sounds like Betsy, you've listened to a few because you mentioned my mom, Marie, who steals the show for me at the end of these podcasts. I always come up with five words or five subjects that I'd like, the authors or responders. I have 10 here. I'm just going to say the word and you tell me your reaction. Fourth generation fighter, Tom. Fourth generation fighter. Very capable amongst its contemporaries. Populates most of the air power world today. Fifth Gen is starting to take over in selected places, but the bulk of the air power world out there is fourth gen. Improved dramatically over time, started out as a day fighter. F-16 as an example. Today it has many, many different sensors and missions. So very capable, still in operation and we'll be for quite some time. What about the word F-35, Betsy? What would you say?

Oh, F-35, extremely capable, an aircraft that has been criticized unmercally for many years from people outside the program, from the press, from conflicting interests. And I think it's just such a capable airplane. In fact, that's why we decided to write the book, because people did not, I felt certainly, did not appreciate the complexity of what was. being done in terms of technology, in terms of stakeholders with the nine partner countries. That story needed to be told. And I'll tell you, Anthony, I'm a total outsider. So my career has always been to come in as an independent to review programs. I reviewed many, many, many in my life. And I've never seen one that was so unfairly criticized and so capable. Tom, when I say the words air superiority, what comes to mind?

To me, it's win the fight, whether it's air-to-air engagement or whether it's controlling the skies over a heavily defended strategic area. And that really is how you separate the F-22 and F-35 in my view. You know, the F-22 was designed to be able to engage and win any dog fight. It also has the capability to fly high and fast, which is a certain element of a dimension of survivability too. And that gives its penetration capability. the F-35, it's not, it doesn't fly that fast. It doesn't fly at the altitudes of the F-22, but it can penetrate and deliver a weapon onto a strategic target and basically control the sky. So air power to me or air superiority is you own the skies. Whatever the mission is,

you own the skies. And if you own the skies, you generally have a tremendous advantage in the ongoing war, whether it's the ground war, tank war, whatever it is. What about the word NATO, Betsy? incredibly important as an alliance. And with NATO, the backbone of NATO for years was the F-16. And so the backbone of NATO is now becoming the F-35. And I think pretty much Tom would know, but pretty much all the NATO countries have signed up for the F-35. So I think it is just key. All of these alliances are. They really are. The Indo-Pacific is another one that's key. It's how we fight combat now. It's not just the U.S. going in. ourselves. Right. No, it's good. It's helpful. How about the words sixth generation fighter, Tom? Usually generations indicate a transformational change, a significant technology leap. When you went from fourth to fifth, you really introduced the dimension of stealth and supermaneuverability and information management. To go to six, I don't think it's, it's almost like it's become a word game.

I don't know that it's been defined exactly what is the leap in technology that six gen would bring to you because I think it's still being thought out. I think whatever you think it's going to be has to translate into a set of requirements that can be engineered and delivered by industry. And I don't think that step has taken place yet. I think it's still now a bit of fog sculpting on, you know, this is what we think it ought to be. This is where we think the world is going. These are the technologies that might be able to mature. But back to timelines, that doesn't happen overnight. I mean, that's a process in itself.

And, you know, it's been quite a journey on F-35. They actually started looking at the technologies for F-35 in the mid-90s. Well, this is 30 years later. So by the time you mature those technologies to the point where you can actually manufacture and produce them, that's a time element. And then you have the industrial requirement to be able to actually build it. So it's a fairly complex, long process. So I don't think 6-10 has been well defined yet.

At least I haven't found a good. definition for it. Betsy, what about F-16s in Ukraine? Oh, F-16. Tom's probably better able to answer this, but certainly controlling the airspace is key. One of the things, there was a very good article that General Phil Breedlove wrote in the, and it appears in the U.S. publication, but he talked about why Russia has struggled so much in Ukraine because they don't control the airspace. And I think so, it's been very important. The F-16 is a very capable airplane, and it's something that Ukraine has asked for and really, really does need. Tom, do you want to add to that? Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question because Ukraine has a very small Air Force right now. They can generate maybe 10 or 12 sorties a

day, and generally speaking, their older airplanes, mostly Russian, I think. And so moving Ukraine into F-16s would, in fact, bring them into the NATO community. And that's, they're not currently in there. of their objectives. I think the NATO community would like to eventually have them move in. So the question is, where do the F-16s come from? Because they're engaged in a hot war right now. So you don't want to see your flag on the tail of an F-16 that's engaged in a war in Ukraine because that now de facto brings NATO into the fight. So there's a lot of diplomatic hurdles that need to be overcome. As the northern European NATO countries move into the F-35, that's freeing up F-16s. many of them have already stopped operating their F-16s as they're now operating their F-35.

So there's an inventory of available F-16s. How are you going to manage that? Right now, the number I here talked about is 48. That's about four squadrons. Where are you going to base them? You can't base them all in the same place. And if you base them outside to Ukraine, then de facto, you're bringing somebody else into the war. So there's all kinds of difficult questions like that that need to be answered before it happens.

But really, in my view, it's a move towards making NATO credible, I mean, making Ukraine credible as of future NATO members. What about the words military industrial complex, Betsy? Oh, my goodness. This brings me back to Eisenhower and warning about it. I think back in the, well, was that back in the 50s, I guess. Yeah, that was his farewell address. It's certainly important part of our defense. I think the U.S. is, as far as I can see, certainly ahead of the world.

I mean, in terms of defense of democracy, it is very, very important. And I think we have certainly a robust industrial defense complex, but it was downsized, very interesting story that we talk about in the book in terms of the 90s with the peace dividend and the consolidation of a lot of American countries. And the F-35 was a big driver for that. So, yeah, I guess that would be my response. Tom, do you want to add to that also? Only that you've seen a transformation in that area also in two ways.

One is the mergers and the consolidation of the prime contractor industry. And secondly, is the introduction of commercial space and commercial activities, primarily with SpaceX and others that have decided to take on the big ULA, the big alliances from the primes and offer similar capabilities at lower cost. So you're seeing sort of a transformation of that complex in two dimensions, in my view. It's a little bit of an old-fashioned term, but I'm going to like get both your reactions to this. Reagan used to call it peace through strength. Is that still our policy and how does that policy work? How successful is it, in your opinion? I think it's absolutely essential. If you're going to be a superpower, you've got to act like one. And if you lose that edge, and I have great reservations about what's happening in our country today. And I'm not the only one I don't think, but that's just my view of the world. The focus on maintaining that edge over other countries. and other superpowers seems to me to be eroding and primarily from lack of, maybe it's lack of focus. Maybe it's, I don't know, it's things that are disturbing to veterans primarily and to those that have served and flown and fought in the service. And it's something we need to be very careful of

because I think it was Reagan that also said you can lose democracy in one generation. Yes, he did. Yep, 25 years, he said, we're not careful. Yep. What about you, Betsy? What do you think? I will certainly add that I am so happy that we have the F-35. I am so happy that our allies have the F-35. I think the strength from that coalition is unprecedented. And I think it's going to, I think it's a game changer.

I just do. I think the way the whole thing evolved, I think the U.S. bringing in our closest allies into the F-35 was one of the smartest things they could have done. And so I, as a pro-democracy person, it's just an amazing aircraft. And I think it is, I think there's a lot of strength there. So at least from what I know, and I'm not privy to everything, I'm really not worried. I'm just so glad we have it. Well, you know, it's interesting because my producer and I, when we read the book and wanted to invite you on, that was the uplifting message from this book, that there's a defense capabilities and there's a great coalition of

democracies that are dedicated to defending freedom around the world. And I've had a sense of optimism, a spirit of optimism reading this book that we'll be able to handle our adversaries that we still have despite the internal squabbles and the tribalism in the country. We still have dedicated men and women that are focused on our defense and making sure that we can defend this very fragile democracy that we all love. And so for those reasons and many others, I just want to thank you. guys for writing this book. The title of the book is F-35, The Insight Story of the Lightning Two. Love the pictures in here, too, by the way. There's some great, colorful pictures, and I appreciate you both coming on Open Book today, and thank you for sharing your comments

and your insights. Thank you very much for having us. Anthony, really appreciate it. It's great to listen to you and to discuss this project with you. So we appreciate your time. The sheer power of the F-35 plane is incredible. When you read the amount of work in engineering and technological innovation that went into this plane, it's sort of amazing that we have technology like this in this country. And it once again gives me great confidence that we have great military superiority relative to our competitors out there in the world. And it gives me long-term hope for the U.S. being able to do this very good job. job of making us safe here in the country, but also peacekeeping in general around the world

because we have technology like this. However, when you get technology like this, you get complication. And we know sometimes these planes have not been efficacious for the American military. Some of it has to do with this technology. Some of it has to do with the software that's gone into the plane. And frankly, some of it has to do with the real physical force of the plane where we've actually seen pilots knocked unconscious by its speed or its speed. It's dexterity. So we're reaching now the intersection between our great engineering innovation and what the human being is actually capable of doing.

And of course, someday there'll be an aircraft like this has operated without humans. So just imagine that. But this is a very exciting time for the American military. It was a great discussion with Tom and Betsy about the F-35 fighter jet and its impact on our national defense and security. All right. You ready to go back on the air, ma? Yeah.

Have you been reading about this? F-35 fighter jet that went missing? Yeah. What about it? Okay, so what do you think happened, Mike? Do you think the Russians hacked into the fighter jet and destabilized the jet? Or what do you think happened? Or do you think it was just a technical error by our pilots? No, I think that either North Korea or the Russians, I'm not sure.

Okay, tell me. And I don't think it just disappeared on its own. Definitely not. So tell me why? Because I think that Putin is an animal that belongs in a cage, And he should be shot. I really believe that. And I think the other one's a complete nutcase

or need you know anything else. Right. No, they're bad people. But we have a lot of people in the United States to sometimes defend Putin. What would you say to the people that are defending Putin, Ma? I would say that they better educate themselves

before we end up getting hurt. Okay, it's a good message. Okay. And Ma, do you remember when I went on that aircraft carrier 10 years ago? Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

What do you think of the American military, Mom? I think they're the best still. I still think they're the best. Tell me why. Well, first of all, I think, I think America's still number one. We are in a turmoil right now because I don't think Biden's nice. He's too nice, but he's not strong enough where he doesn't handle the real crisis correctly in my book. You know, like he, he doesn't really get involved strong enough. This is where I think Trump, that's why he probably will win because he doesn't hold back. I mean, we have a lot of immigrants here, and I think America should be able to whether people hate to come from other countries because they're very poor. But I don't think we should have as many because then it hurts the Americans. Yeah, I'm about that too. I mean, you can't have illegal immigrants like this. It's not fair to them.

It's not fair to the poor worker. No, it's not fair to anybody, but they're not doing anything about it. I read an article about a little boy who was in ninth grade who was illegal immigrant came from one of them, and he was in a slaughterhouse, he almost lost his arm. And that's because they have to have food so they can eat. I think America, not that we should send them tons of money, but we should subsidize and give them some money so they don't have to eat in no garbage. Yeah, I've always said that.

I said that on TV last week, that when we had a good neighbor policy, we had less migration. We have no good labor policy. Now we're trying to fight it at the border. It's not, it doesn't work. So. Why are we accepting so many people? You can't walk in New York safely anymore because the people are so hungry to eat that they're making crimes left and right.

So why are we doing that? I don't get it. I don't know, you know, I'm hoping that the politics will be such that these people like Kathy Hockall will get knocked out of office and we'll put some people in that, you know, we'll put the politics back to where Mike Bloomberg had them, you know, I hope so. I think Mike Bloomberg was excellent. And I think that to get about all the bullshit that they said, about Andrew Colmo, I felt like he was a good governor.

Yeah, me too. But I think that Michael Bloomberg had it totally together. If Andrew Cuomo runs again, are you going to vote for him? Yes. Okay, I'll tell Andrew that, okay? All right, let's leave it there, Ma. Thank you for joining Open Book. All right, I love you, Ma.

Thank you. I love you. All right. Love you. All right. 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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