Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - January 2026 Q&A: Who Comes After Trump, My Favorite Books, Life After Death, and More...

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Starting point is 00:01:37 And I've been loving the feedback, the good, bad, and the ugly. So let's jump right into the questions. This is from YouTube. And if you are on YouTube, do me a favor. There's a subscribe button somewhere around here. Hit the subscribe button. Make us look good. It'll help me with the algorithm.

Starting point is 00:01:53 This is from Joe L. Rala. What are some 2026 recommended must read books? Well, Joe, it really does depend on your taste for books, if it's fiction or nonfiction. So anything Ken Follett's writing, of course, you should be reading. I will tell you that my old boss, Lloyd Blank Find, is coming out with a book in March, getting through Goldman Sachs. He sent me an advanced copy of it. It is brilliant. I predict it will be the business book of the year. So those are two that are really. right off the top of my head, many more of what I'm going to do because a lot of people ask me this question. One of my producers, Stanley Goldberg, is going to put together a list of the top 100 books that I'm recommending to people. We'll get that out to people in a newsletter. This is from LinkedIn, Andre Gorsh. Hey, Anthony, I'm a regular listener of the rest of Politics, U.S. Thank you for that. I read your book where you give really genuine personal advice. What I'm curious about is why you advocate crypto, especially given how volatile it is.

Starting point is 00:02:56 So, Andre, it's such a good question. I was a crypto naysayer. I was a doom scroller on crypto. I thought it was ridiculous. And I guess what happened to me is I did a tremendous amount of homework. And then I learned more and more about the blockchain and the technical properties associated with Bitcoin. And I think this is going to be a valuable store of value for us in the future. It's probably not even for people my age because I think I'm probably too old for it, frankly.

Starting point is 00:03:22 But it's for my children's generation. I wrote a book called The Little Book of Bitcoin, which explains my view there. But that's the reason. It is volatile. But you'll probably notice over the last year it's becoming increasingly less volatile. And so I would just tell people, rather than recommending that they own it, I tell people, I recommend that they learn about it. And then they can draw a conclusion. But thank you for tuning into my stuff.

Starting point is 00:03:47 I really appreciate it. This is from Linda Green, 2395 YouTube. You think Trump is showing signs of dementia? If so, what is your prediction about how the last two years of his term will be? Do you think his chief of staff will cover it up and try to run the country? Will the Republicans in Congress go along with this? So let me break it down into the three questions. First question is, no, I don't think he's showing signs of dementia.

Starting point is 00:04:11 I think he's showing signs of natural aging. I think he could sometimes miss a word or he's got an unsteady gate lately. Those are natural signs of aging for an 80-year-old man. He seems like he has pretty vigorous amounts. ounce of energy. He's on the golf course. He doesn't drink or smoke. I think that's really benefited him at this age that he's at right now. So the answer to that one is no. I think the last two years of the term are going to get nasty. He's a neolistic guy. And so if it looks to him like he's not going to be able to stay in power, which I predict he won't be able to stay in power.

Starting point is 00:04:46 I think he gets nastier and nastier. Unfortunately, cruelty for Mr. Trump is part of the point here. if he is ill, would a chief of staff for Trump or his administration try to cover it up? The short answer to that is yes. The longer answer to that is that we have history of presidents, which are Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, covering up on a heart attack. Ronald Reagan making a decision late about his colonoscopy. There are so many different things that go on with the presidents and their health, and they have a tendency to hide those things. So yes, that would probably happen. and will the Republicans in Congress go along with it? Some will, but many won't. I predict in the second

Starting point is 00:05:27 half of this presidential term, lots of Republicans are going to break from Mr. Trump. So let's see if that happens. That's one of my predictions. This is Rossi 4142 from Instagram. What is an underrated history book you think more people should know about? Well, it's a biography actually. The underrated history book is FDR champion of freedom. It's written by Conrad Black, but it really lays out the blueprint and the framework for the American middle class and the policies that build the American middle class and ultimately the American century after the Second World War. So that's a great book. Second one, I would say, is these truths. It's by a woman by the name of Jill Lepore.

Starting point is 00:06:15 It is a very objective, non-glorifying review of America. American history, the good and the bad and the ugly. And those two books, I think. You read those two books. You'd be ahead of the game, Rossi, 41, 42. All right, this is from LinkedIn. This is Carlos Gemino. As a father, a lot of my time and my thoughts are invested in my two daughters, as it should

Starting point is 00:06:37 be, Carlos. God bless you. I understand that a real legacy goes beyond financial inheritance. What could you identify as the most important part of a non-financial legacy to your children and why. And so I'm going to make this very simple for you, sir, and this is 62 years of observation and 34 years of being a parent. And so what I would say to you, sir, is I can only really give my children two things. Number one, I have to teach them that they have to celebrate the successes of their friends. I think if you can strain out all the primordial guilt, primordial envy, primordial

Starting point is 00:07:17 of jealousy. You can strain out all those things from your personality and enjoy your friends and be the first call for your friends when good things are happening for them. You're generally going to be a more happy person and have a great life. And then the second thing is pick something that you love to do and just do it. One of my kids is in the financial services industry. That was by his choice, not mine. I have two other two other adult children that are artists. And that's what they should be because that's really where their passion is and where their pleasure comes from. So you want to pick something, tell your daughters, pick something that they really, really like and just do that. And it'll be a meaningful and fulfilling and purposeful life.

Starting point is 00:08:00 Instagram, A. Kirsch-Bush, hopefully I said that, right? If you have no money, how do you make money? Such a really good question. So, well, first thing you got to do, step one, you got to get a job. And so you got to work on. personal hygiene, you've got to work on attire to the extent that you can, you know, even in a country like ours or in Western nations, there is some welfare support for people that have absolutely no money. So try to get a clean suit or a clean garments, clean yourself up, go get a job somewhere and begin the process of saving at least 10% of your money, maybe putting it in the stock account or putting it in the bank. And every week, if you do,

Starting point is 00:08:44 that you'll accumulate a nest egg. I started with very, very little money and I started practicing that at the age of 18. I read a book called The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clayson. It was a 1926 classic. So it's over 100 years old now. And start there. Okay, but personal hygiene, good clothing, work, and savings. How can the Democrats get back to the center instead of moving to the far left. This is John Nunziot, too, from Instagram. You got me on that one, brother. I have no idea. I think these guys have really lost the plot. And until they accept people like me, I think they're going to have a really hard time. I'm a non-a-Trump person. I'm sort of a centrist, Republican. Democrats have to go after independence. If they sit on the hard left,

Starting point is 00:09:37 guys like Mondani will certainly win in New York. But I don't think that's a person that could play nationwide. Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but they don't seem to be tacking to the center anytime soon. But the outreach is what they would need to do. It doesn't look like they want to do that. YouTube, Rob Bochick, 1891. Where do you think the housing market and the U.S. overall economy will be in six months higher? I think there'll be more supply of housing. I think the administration is working on that alongside of lots of other people. This initiative maybe to stop the private equity firms from buying individual houses. I'm not even sure if that's legal. If that goes through, that will certainly help prices in certain housing markets. But I think the overall U.S.

Starting point is 00:10:21 economy rates are going to get cut. Lots of money is going to get flooded into the system as a result of the upcoming midterm elections. And so I'm going to say higher. Let's see if I'm right. You guys will beat up on me. Let's do one of these in June or July. You can come and beat up on me. All right. Let's keep going here. This is from X. This is names, Nick. 386-120, can you define why Bitcoin has value for a layman? So I actually probably can't do that. The best I can do for you is to study the history of money. And you don't necessarily have to read the book, but just go to Google and say,

Starting point is 00:10:58 could you summarize for me the assent of money by Professor Neil Ferguson. And if you read the qualities associated with money, the immutability, the idea that money is really a technology or a spreadsheet that we use with each other to track value. If you start to really understand how human beings have used money for the last 5,000 years, and then you look at the technical properties of Bitcoin, you'd be like, whoa, this is like a perfect identity for money. Everything that Bitcoin has is things that we've been searching for over the last 5,000 years. And I think if you sync those two things together, you'll see why Bitcoin has so much value. This is from Joe Aruna, Aruna Joe, Instagram.

Starting point is 00:11:43 Do you grow up? Did you grow up liberal or conservative? I didn't grow up liberal or conservative. I grew up Republican because my dad's union was controlled by the Republicans. But I see myself as a centrist Republican, sort of socially inclusive and fiscally, I would say I'm a fiscal moderate. I'm not going to say I'm a fiscal conservative. A lot of people say that. But I see myself more as fiscally responsible.

Starting point is 00:12:08 as opposed to a conservative. LinkedIn. Peter Khrishan, hopefully I'm pronouncing your name right, Peter. I wonder what sense or feeling you will take away from the ADFW this year. Okay, that's the Abu Dhabi Finance Week, by the way, for those of you listening,

Starting point is 00:12:25 especially in terms of the relative growth and importance of the Middle East, in contrast to Europe and the United States. Well, the thing I would say, Peter, is that it's growling and the investment is, staggering. And I will say all of that is great, but it's still a very small footprint relative to the United States in Europe. Now, I'm not a European, but if I was a European,

Starting point is 00:12:51 I would say, guys, wake up, you got to spend more money in venture capital. The state of Israel, it's a very small country, eight-ish million people, is investing more in venture capital than a 525 million person European continent. And so get out of the sclerosis. start thinking like Abu Dhabi or Tel Aviv. All right, let's keep going. This is Bieta brand. How are you, Bieta? It's nice to hear from you.

Starting point is 00:13:17 LinkedIn, few questions for you. Do bobbleheads like Scott Pesend and Howard Lutnik truly believe their statements regarding the economy, or do they know better and won't tell the truth? A little bit of both. I think they believe some of the statements. The economy is growing. Productivity gains are going to happen. AI is going to help that.

Starting point is 00:13:34 Robotics, all this technology. I don't think they believe the nonsense. associated with the tariffs. I know both of those people personally who were both anti-tariff people before they showed up in Washington. But power, trust me, I've been there. Power does tricky things to your brain and you start spouting all things so that you can ride around in the presidential motorcade. So no, I don't think they believe all of it, but they do believe some of it. And does Wall Street understand the current economic conditions on Main Street? No. Wall Street is pretty insulated. and what happens to people is you get the collective biases of the people that you're hanging out with.

Starting point is 00:14:12 And so you're primarily hanging out with wealthy people. And so they don't really get it. And I'm going to say something doesn't reflect well on me. It was really until the first Trump campaign that I really got to see the disparity. So I missed it too, but I get it now. I don't think there'll be any response from Wall Street. The real question is, will there be a transformational politician in the future that will start thinking about, the American people, less about the big corporations and the wealthy. Some of that's tied to the way

Starting point is 00:14:42 these guys get their money for their campaigns as well. So this is from Instagram, Colin McBerry. What books do you recommend and gift the most? So I did mention one earlier, the richest man in Babylon. I gift that all the time. In fact, I have a stack of them behind me. It's a small paperback by George Clayson. I gift the Iliot a lot. That's a story from Homer about the Trojan War and the subtitle has always been the wrath of Achilles, what happens to Achilles during that period of time. But lots of different books. And as I said earlier, we're going to send out a 100 books that I think are mandatory reading for people just to stay intellectually curious and educated. What have you learned over the years about how to be a good husband?

Starting point is 00:15:28 This is from age of Zub. Wow, this is such a great question. So priorities. I think the number one thing, somebody like me, and listened, you know, I've had a marriage that ended in divorce, unfortunately, and my current marriage, knock on wood is going well. And Dider and I love each other, thank God. And we've had well-documented ups and downs on our marriage, but going well right now, knocking on wood. But I think the number one thing is priorities. I think you have to make each other the priority. And so think about it like you had rocks and you had sand and you had a glass, jar. Well, you've got to put the rocks in first and then you fill up the jar with the sand. You

Starting point is 00:16:12 can't put the sand in first, then the rocks won't fit. And so the rocks are the priorities. That's your family, what your wife wants you to do, to be a good husband, what you need to do to be a good father, make those the priorities and fill in everything else after you've done that. I think that's the most important thing. Such a great question. Instagram, bash, full of Haca. I mean, I love these names. What current cabinet member has the best chance to continue a life in politics afterwards? Really good question. I don't think any of them, to be honest. I think that this was going to end in tears and be a disaster. And I think most of these people will be disgraced before this thing is over. There might be some sub-cabinet officials that will stay in the infrastructure. But I don't think any of these people are going to end up with political careers.

Starting point is 00:17:03 LinkedIn, Mary Lee, Dylan, what do you think we can do to eliminate the kleptocracy, cacistocracy, graft, and overall government corruption in the U.S. today? Good question. Well, good luck to that. You know, Elon must discover that that is a beast onto its own. It's a living, breeding organism with a great immune system. So when you go after it, it blows you up. I think the best thing you can do is with President Clinton, Alan Greenspan, and George Herbert Walker Bush,

Starting point is 00:17:33 about the government, you have to slow down the growth of spending. The American economy is vibrant. The people of America are amazing. And if you can figure out a way to just slow down the spending growth, so instead of 4%, 5% growth, 1 to 2% growth in certain areas, the economy will catch up and the percentage of spending to GDP will go down and it'll make the government's balance sheet much healthier. But I don't think you're going to end the graph and the kleptocracy. anytime soon. You could eliminate Citizens United and you could end gerrymandering. Those are going to be tough things to do because these politicians are incentivized, keep those in place. But it's hard. I mean, let's not kid ourselves, right? YouTube, Norman Woods, 884. I recently saw an interview with Nelson Mandela describing a situation in South Africa where South Africa needed help from Cuba after the United States of America had turned them down. Later in the process, the United States of America did agree to help South Africa, but only if South Africa agreed to dump Cuba. Mandela, Nelson Mandela, a great man refused to dump Cuba based on principle. Do you believe that a policy guided by core principles, one that is principle driven, has completely vanished from the global and American political landscape, whereas there's still an opportunity for a leader to have fortitude to uphold such a stance?

Starting point is 00:18:56 So this is an amazing question. The short answer is it's not completely abandoned, no, but it's never completely principled. I think what we find is when Jimmy Carter was like completely principled on his human rights initiatives, he was too brittle and too inflexible. And it caused America a problem where we were acting against our self-interest. And so I was more in favor of the Reagan approach where there was some levels of principality to it. but he was also willing to be practical and negotiate with people that he wasn't supposed to be negotiating with, et cetera. So it's got to be a blend. I appreciate what Mandela did.

Starting point is 00:19:37 He really wasn't a politician. He spent 27 years in jail. He was more of a political activist that rose to power and became president of that country based on his principles. So it would make sense that he would adhere to them. But I think it's very tough in America to be fully principled. And I'm being honest with you guys. I think that's the purpose of this program. Instagram, Luke Web 7. What three ways have you been using AI that's accelerated your work? I'm not telling.

Starting point is 00:20:05 Not telling. Okay, I'm kidding. I am telling. Okay, I use chat GDP, chat GPT, excuse me, N-GROC, and I use cloud, believe it or not, from Anthropics, C-L-A-U-D-E. And I ask lots of questions, political, analytical questions, some of books, medical advice, fitness advice. I find myself sometimes, I don't use them to write, however, because I think for some reason these things are still clunky. Cloud is the best one for writing, but I think it's still clunky, but you can get good ideas and you can get some consolidation of ideas from this stuff. And so I would just tell you to think about it this way. First of all, I subscribe. So I pay the $300 a month in certain cases or $200 a year. and I subscribe because I want the deep analytical capability. I would just treat this as a really smart business partner,

Starting point is 00:21:02 a really smart friend, ask it questions, and see what it says. There's still some hallucination, by the way, so it's not 100% accurate, but I do like it and I do use it. And I would recommend that you get to use it too because it will be a useful tool as you get more facile with it.

Starting point is 00:21:19 Okay, what are your favorite novels? Such a great question. I'm going to give you my number one. novel. And it was written 35 years ago. It's called the Gold Coast by Nelson and Mill. And it's about this area that I grew up in. And my second favorite novel is the Great Gatsby, also about the area I grew up in, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So those are two. Start there. One is very funny. And one is a classic American story that I think is timeless as it relates to what America really is. Okay, YouTube, Brian Smith, 38, 36.

Starting point is 00:21:55 Do you believe that when you die, it's lights out? Or is there something else? Wow, Brian, you know, I got to tell you something. I believe there is something else. I'm going to stick with Isaac Newton on this. That energy is neither created or destroyed. I do think you go somewhere else. I think that there's a potential almost infinity to the universe and the permanence there.

Starting point is 00:22:21 And when I look at the math associated with us, and after reading lots about Howard Einstein, I think this vessel known as time is a persistent illusion. That is a quote from Einstein. So yes, I do think there is something else, Brian. What it is, I don't know. If you can figure it out, please write back to me because I think the whole world and the 100 billion people that have lived on this earth would like to know the answer to that. But I do think there is something, and that is part of my faith. Okay, Brad David, 902. What is your favorite movie about World War II? Well, I like Inglorious Bastards. I thought that was really funny. You want something historical. I would go to the longest day, which was the 1962 black and white movie, the Battle of the Bulls. These are movies from the 60s and 70s. You want something from 30 years ago, 28 years ago, I would say Private Ryan. But there's great, so great World War II movies. And I have two uncles that were veterans in that warp. And I think about that war often. And so what a great question.

Starting point is 00:23:25 question. Okay, that's a wrap on this month's Q&A episode for Open Book. I hope you enjoyed it. I read all your comments primarily because I'm a curious guy and I love hearing what you think about different conversations we're having here on Open Book and also what's going on around us. So please keep me activated by sending this stuff in, subscribe if you're somewhere out there in the YouTube universe or even if it's just on the podcast, subscribe on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You missed any of the of the questions this time. We'll be back next month. So if I didn't get to your question, I'll try to get to it next month with another round of answers. So please keep sending him in anyways. We're also going to have a newsletter that we put out.

Starting point is 00:24:11 We'll hopefully answer some of the people's questions. But in the meantime, don't forget to subscribe and share and leave a review if you've enjoyed the episode. Until then, let's keep the conversation going. And I'll see you next time, an open book. And for those you that listen to the rest of politics. U.S., thank you for doing that as well. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs' national series on the Canadian standard of living, productivity and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity

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Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - January 2026 Q&A: Who Comes After Trump, My Favorite Books, Life After Death, and More...

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