Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Mastering Intrigue with Brad Thor

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

This week, Anthony talks with bestselling author Brad Thor about his new thriller, Shadow of Doubt.  Brad shares his insights on the current world events that inspire his novels, including the rise of China, the Russian threat, and the importance of the United States' role in global affairs. He emphasizes the need for creativity and adaptability in the face of changing times and discusses the intense research and writing process behind his books.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. My guest today's new book is already a New York Times bestseller. Brad Thor has written 24 thrillers, and I'm sure many of you will have read at least one of them.

He is, of course, a brilliant novelist, but he also has his hand firmly on the pulse of what's going on around us. For those listening in, he also has a fantastic head of hair. Sorry, Brad, but I had to mention that because I think I have a fantastic head of hair. So what do you think of that? But in any event, I love this conversation, and I hope you will too. I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Astroy's great podcast, The Back Room. Every episode is a fun, incredibly honest take on our society and the political situation, along with some brilliant guests. I've been honored to join Andy on the show, and you know anywhere that accepts me with no filter deserves a shout-out.

So joining us now and back by popular demand is Brad Thor. He's a number one New York Times bestselling author. He's got 24 thrillers. The latest one, I'm going to hold it up here, Shadow of Doubt. Okay, so let me tell you something. I don't know how you do this, but I do think that you have a, you could tell me if there's a crystal wall somewhere in that house of yours because you're predicting events that happen prior to them happening, right?

So everything in this book could happen, and I want to get into that. It's brilliant to have you here. I'm a big fan. My mother-in-law is a big fan. And I will point out to everybody that, that Brad is a good guy. He wrote a very nice inscription to my mother-in-law, which made me look good. So thank you. You're welcome. Let's start with you, because I want to refresh everybody with your background, how you got into writing these books. And this is obviously a labor of love for you, but you weren't always doing this. And remember, I'm going to ask you to color this where I have a lot of young people listening to this podcast, Fred. And how do you go from what you're doing? which is a traditional thing to something that is a labor of love. And when did you make the leap and why? Okay, so real quick, my family background, we're an immigrant family, so to speak. My grandfather was the first one born in America.

We're from Scandinavia. My dad went into the Marine Corps so we could go to college on the GI Bill. I went to the University of Southern California to study business to take over my dad's real estate development firm. He builds office buildings and hotels. And I hated it. I hated business administration. I would have rather taken a bullet in the head than to have sat behind a desk my whole life. And so I changed my major in college to creative writing and film and television production. And when I got out of USC, I had saved a bunch of money. I leased apartments in L.A. while I was in college. That's how I made money to help pay my way through. In addition to my old man helping me a little bit, but he was really serious about, you know, we worked from a very young age of my family. I think my first job was like seventh or eighth grade. I started pumping gas up in Wisconsin.

summers. So anyway, I'd saved up all this money and I thought, I'll do something no American has ever done. I'm going to go to Paris and write a novel. Of course, tons of Americans have done this. That was just my running joke at the time. Starting with Hemingway. Exactly. And Henry Miller and on and on and on, F. Scott Fitzgerald. So I got over to Paris. A friend had a room in her apartment. Let me have it. And I was very afraid of failure. And so I got a couple chapters into that novel and I gave it up. had that voice in the back of my head that said, why risk the embarrassment? Maybe the book's going to suck. Maybe nobody's going to like it. So better to not write at all than to set yourself up for failure. And I gave into that voice. It was a mistake. But I traveled around Europe with the money I had saved and I saw all of

these young people with backpacks. And I was like, wow, this is amazing in seeing my country from abroad. I always felt made me a better American. And I said, I'm going to get back and pitch public television on a travel show for young people, 18 to 34 year olds. I came back. It took a long time, but I pitched them. They loved the idea. I got a show on the air called Traveling Light. I was the producer, the writer, the host.

I used to make up names for the credit crawl. I used to take friends from high school and throw them in there and stuff because I didn't want to seem like a small time operator. And on my honeymoon, after my second season of shows, I met my wife. We got married and we were on our honeymoon. And she said, what would you regret on your deathbed, never having done? And I said writing a book and getting it published. And she said, okay, when we get home, you need to start spending two hours a day, protected time, make that happen.

And that's kind of the condensed 30,000 foot version of how it happened. But there's a lot there, though, right? You have a, you know, my grandfather once said if you pick the right spouse, focus on one, don't focus on many. They'll help you get to wherever you want to go. So your wife definitely helped you. Amen. The second thing there is you had something burning. and some of us snuff that out.

We get fearful. We're worried about our paychecks day to day and we don't want to take the leap. I always wanted to have my own business. I was at Goldman making a lot of money, bread, but I said, you know, I got to go have my own business. I left. I took a seven-figure job to a no-figure job,

and everyone thought I was crazy, but it was a better life for me because it fit my personality. It didn't hem me in. So has your writing fit your personality? Well, I think so. first of all, that's that old poem, that path diverged in the woods, and I took the path least traveled by, and it's made all the difference, right? You took your chance. I took my chance.

Neither of us are going to wake up on our deathbed saying, what if we'd only done this, you know, years ago. So the writing, I will say this, Anthony, the character, my protagonist, Scott Harvath, and for those of your viewers and listeners who haven't read a Brad Thor book before, I tell people that my thrillers, because I've got the same guy in all the books, Scott Harvath. He's a former Navy SEAL that does very, very off the book stuff for the government. And I tell people that the books are like the James Bond movies. If the newest Bond movie is in your local multiplex down the street, you can go see it. Doesn't matter if you've never seen a Bond movie before. You're not going to miss out on anything. You'll get caught up real

quick. Same thing with my books. So I tell people that Got Harvath is kind of my alter ego, the same way I believe James Bond was for Ian Fleming and then Jack Ryan was for Tom Clancy. So he gets I used to joke that he gets to do the things that my wife won't let me go and do. And if I'd say that near shot of my wife, she said, well, I let you go to Afghanistan. And I said, yeah, we made sure all the insurance was paid up and all that kind of stuff. But my wife was pretty cool when I wanted to go over there and do some research. So, yeah, he's my alter ego. So that's, I get to have a lot of fun writing this character.

But you're talking to a lot of people. You're talking to intelligence sources. You're on the ground in places like Afghanistan. You're on the ground in other Middle Eastern countries, Asian countries. the stuff you write, and I've been to some of the places that you write about, including Afghanistan. I was a part of the business executors of National Security for five years. So I traveled to Iraq, traveled to Afghanistan on troop support missions.

The stuff you're writing about is real. And it's sort of like, I sort of feel like it's near nonfiction. Like some people are fiction writers, but you're near nonfiction, meaning it's coming up. Coming up is what Skart Harvath is doing. in this summer's novel, except it'll be sometime in 2025 we'll have to deal with it. So let's set the scene without blowing up the book for people. Tell us a little bit about the plot and where Scott ends up. So I call what I do faction, where you don't know where the facts end and the fiction begins.

Right. That's beautiful word. I like that word. Yeah. And it's one of the reasons, and I will get to the book, but the Department of Homeland Security after 9-11 set up something called their analytic red cell unit where they invited creative people. into D.C. to help them war game. They realized very, like the day of 9-11 that we got hit and Al-Qaeda was successful because we weren't creative enough. And they were determined never to let that happen again. So they brought in all these creative thinkers from outside D.C. I was one of them to help war game different scenarios. And I refer to that as the Las Vegas of government programs because what happens in the red cells stays in the red cell. I can't use it for any of my books. But they wanted me there for the way I drew up these scenarios. So with this summer's

thriller with Shadow of Doubt, I have a high, level Russian defector that crosses the border into Norway with a ton of secrets that could shatter the West. And at the same time in Paris, a French intelligence officer has discovered a huge secret within the French government. Can't trust anybody in his own government. So we set up breakfast the next morning with the CIA station chief in Paris. But he dies. He's murdered that night before he can get to the breakfast. And then we've got my character, Scott Harvath. He's just come off an operation to rescue an American hostage in Ukraine. He's taken a week. He told his bosses, don't call me, don't email me, don't text me. I'm not going to answer. I'm going to go to

Norway and I'm going to meet up with my fiance and I'm taking a week off. Well, when he lands in Oslo, there's a CIA station chief there as well and she says, we know your fiancee is going to debrief this Russian. We need to know what she knows and we want you to spy on her. And he says up yours, I'm not doing it. I've never said no to my country before, but I'm not going to spy on my soon to be wife. And the CIA blackmails him into service. He has never said no to an op. This one he's blackmailed into. But there's a twist. He figures out how to turn it around a little bit back on the CIA. So that's the jumping off point for shadow of doubt. So friend or foe, I'm going to ask you a couple, I'm going to say a couple of names. You tell me friend or foe. Ready?

Okay. Madam Putin, friend or foe? Foe, 100%. No question. Okay. So why are all these Republicans so sympathetic to him then? Well, so here's what's going on, Anthony. If you read particularly, I don't know if you read Ann Appabom's book, Autocracy, Inc. Is her newest one? Twilight of Democracy. I've invited her on, actually. I just bought that book. It's a small little book.

I saw it in Barnes & Noble. I purchased it. I haven't read it, but go ahead. So Ann Appelam, her book from two summers ago is Twilight of Democracy. So when you look at the Balkans and other places that have slipped into ethnic strife and conflict, what you find is that the one group that had been dominant, that had been the all-powerful group, as they start to slide into minority, they fight back and they fight back and lose respect for the rule of law and all this kind of thing.

They want to preserve their way of life no matter what. In fact, one of the most interesting statistics or determinants I heard for whether or not your county had somebody at the January 6th insurrection was whether there was a dwindling white population in your county. So that was one of the greatest determinants as to whether or not somebody from your county was at the January 6th insurrection, which is very interesting. So if you look at the Balkans and other places that have slipped into ethnic strife and conflict and one, the minority trying to shove the newly minted majority out. That's what you see,

not even out, but to prevent them from rightly taking power. And that's what we've got here. So now with these people who feel their life is in, their way of life is in danger, that the country's slipping away, all of that kind of stuff, they are gravitating towards autocracy. They want a strong man. I alone can fix it, sort of a person. And so they respect Putin. They like Putin. And let's let's face it, it is absolutely horrific. that Trump holds up and slobbers all over Putin and Kim Jong-un and President Xi, all that kind of stuff. So that's where a lot of that nonsense is coming from. Abelbaum believes he does that because he wants to be them. Do you think that's the case? Oh, I think of given the choice. Yes. What kind

of insane person says, I want to be a dictator on day one? What kind of American citizen who appreciates the founding documents, the founding of this country, what America stands for? Who would even, can you imagine Reagan making a joke like that? I mean, that's insane. No, I know. I know. Listen, I work for the man, and I saw how dangerous he was. And so they tried to discredit me the way they fired me and then roughed me up on the way out because they were like, okay, this guy sees exactly what we're doing. He doesn't like what we're doing. And so they went to discredit me. So I know exactly what they're doing. I just wrote a piece on Project 2025. That is Trump's agenda. He put 85 of his acolytes in there. But, you know, he's up against, you know, she has some hard left policies. So there's a lot of people. in the middle that don't see it as clearly as you and me. And they're like, okay, well, she's got hard left policies. He's not hard left. But he could be an alligator that eats you while you're crawling on his back.

You see what I mean? Yeah. And so for Trump, it's not necessarily the policies he likes. He likes that there's no guardrails, that these guys can do whatever they want and nobody stands in their way. Everybody falls in behind them, never in front of them and says, stop. That's what Trump likes about these guys. So Putin is a foe.

And I'm glad you said that because I've seen the intelligence briefings. I know what a foe he is. I know what he's capable of. And I always tell people that Putin's people, which was written by Catherine Belton, she was the former Financial Times, Moscow Bureau Chief, H.R. McMaster, who has a new book out. He sent me during COVID in 2020, a copy of her book. I read it from cover to cover.

Putin is a foe. President Xi from China, foe? Foe, absolutely. No question. I mean, listen, this is one of the things with the populist agenda in kind of the American first crowd is they don't want America to project power or be involved in other nations, but they still want America to be number one. Those two are mutually exclusive. You can't sit behind your oceans and be number one. If we step off the world stage, she and China are

going to step into that power vacuum. They are already doing it with the Belt and Road initiative and have been up to it for, you know, decades. I think it's over 20 years now. So this is, you can't have both. You can't be isolationist and number one. It just doesn't work that way. Okay. Let's keep going. I'm with you and you and I share the same philosophy and it's evident from your books. And I'm an American first and I'm a partisan last actually. So I don't even recognize the party that I used to be a part of, which was Reagan and Abraham Lincoln's party. But me neither. Let's keep going. Okay. So Scott has been through hell and back. He's a loner, but he's a loner. friend. He's, he knows how to bond with people. He is incredibly resourceful. Have you met people like this that work for the United States government? I know the answer to this, but tell us about them. I have. So Scott Harvath, my main character is basically an amalgam of people who I know that are out doing some of this nation's most dangerous business. You've got to be a self-starter. You've got to be

charming when it's necessary to be charming. You've got to be able to work well on a team. But most importantly, they've got to be able to put you into some of the worst places in the world, and you've got to figure out how to adapt and overcome. And that's my protagonist, Scott Harvath. Okay. And I agree with all that. Okay. So far passing the test. Good. Yeah. But I mean, the things you've done well, and I want to explain to people who are writers that listen, because this is an author's podcast. The title of the book is, the title of the podcast is an open book. And it's really me interviewing bestselling authors, but you've done something really well here. I have read all. all of these books. So I feel like I know Scott Harvath, but then I try to step back and say,

let's say I just read this book on its own. Let's say I read Shadow of Doubt on its own. I know the book. How do you do that? How do you write a series of books where I can pick a book 13 and I'm right in it and I didn't have to have books one through 12 or I could pick book 24? Good question. How do you do that? So it's a high wire act, Anthony, because I've got people like you that have been with me since the very first book, and then I've always got new people coming on board. So how do I onboard those new people quickly without boring the old people that know the history of Scott Harvath?

Elmore Leonard was famous for saying his advice to young writers, leave out the parts that people skip. So I've got to be careful not to put too much in there. So what I try to do is when I'm explaining a little bit of Scott's background is I find a new way to do it with each book. I tell maybe a little bit different thing from his past. which will be new to the existing readers, and of course, brand new to new readers, but it serves two purposes. It gives the existing longtime readers a neat little piece of the puzzle of Scott's background,

but it also serves to bring brand new readers up to speed because my editor gave me a great piece of advice as I was going into book number two. And she said, don't cannibalize your own sales. You never want somebody to walk into their local bookstore looking for that great beach read and they say, oh, here's Brad Thor's book. Oh, this is book number five. Oh, wait a second. If you haven't read the first four books, you can't buy this. And then they go buy a Patterson book or something like that, God help him. You know? Yeah.

I mean, I don't want to be critical of him, but he. No, and I'm just teasing. Patterson's a great guy, great writer, great guy. He's great guy, great writer. But it's very good. I can predict his books. There's a formula to his books. And if you read one of them, great.

But if you read 10 of them, you're like, okay, I can see where this is going. I can see chapter 22 in chapter four. your book I can't figure it out. So I have to actually read the damn thing. I have to turn the page. And so that's my second question related to your writing style. You make it fresh and you make it relevant. And it doesn't matter which book I buy. I'm in the book. But then, because listen, I have read every spy novel that comes out. I mean, I am a spy novel reader. Charles Cummings from the UK. You mentioned some of the other competitors yet, which I won't mention on this podcast. But you know what I'm. talking about. Sure. I can't predict what you're doing. Good. So what do you do? Do you say, okay, the reader thinks I'm going to go this way? Let me go the other way? Or what do you do? So that's it. So number, first and foremost, my job is to entertain you. So I'm crafting short, crisp, cinematic chapters. In fact, one of the nicest pieces of, one of the nicest accolades is I get is, oh my God, I bought my son your book or I gave your book to my mom who wasn't a reader. And now she is.

She loves your book. She's gone back and read all of them. So what I try to do, there's two types. of authors. You get somebody who's a plotter and they outline or a pantser, somebody who flies by the seat of their pants and doesn't outline. And I'm a pancer. So now that can be tough. It can be really stressful because I'll paint myself into a corner and my wife jokes by the look on my face. She can tell if it's a red wine night or a bourbon night when I get home from the office and she says, don't worry, you'll figure it out tomorrow. And then I'll come in and I'll work it out. But I like to say that I take the first, first of all, I want to have the same experience writing these books, Anthony, that you do reading them. I want Robert,

Frost said, no joy in the writer, no joy in the reader. No surprise in the writer. No surprise in the reader. So what I want to have the same heart pounding, palms, sweating experience writing it that you do reading it. So my rule is if it's time for something new to happen in the book, I take the first four ideas that come into my head and I throw them out. Because if they're that obvious to me, they're going to be that obvious to the reader. And then I start toying with five, six, and seven. And that's where it gets interesting. And that's, I think, what keeps it fresh, exciting. And you don't know what's coming around the next corner. Well, terrific. Let's talk about the world. I'm new to the world. I've just landed. My Martian spacecraft has landed. I'm in your backyard. I come into the house. I'm in your beautiful study. And I say, okay, tell me about this world that you're living in. Tell me about the intrigue that you are so on the pulse of, this international intrigue. So go ahead, give me a briefing. Tell me what's going on.

So you're talking about the real world that we're living in right now. Not the world. Not the world that we teach our kids. Not eighth grade social studies about America, but really what's happened in America and really what's happened around the world. And, you know, because I, let me preface it by saying this to you. I think you and I are two of the luckiest people that have ever lived. And let me explain why we've grown up in a post-World War II America where America has run the card table. Maybe it's becoming harder to run the card table, but for 80 years. We're still the reserve currency for the world,

a result of which there's a ceiling, there's an unlimited, as George Bush's dad, George Herbert Walker Bush said, Kavu, sealing invisibility unlimited. That's been the case for America for a long time now. But tell us about the world that we're living in. Give me a briefing.

See, look, here's what America's dealing with now. Here's where the Russians are. Here's how India's coming into the situation. Here's the Chinese. Here's what's going on with the Iranians and the Israelis. Yeah. So let's preface this on the aliens at least know that we are what the West Fowalian nation state is in that we've got different tribes, let's say, on this planet. We might be all of the same species, but we're not all of the same tribe. And just for young people, what

Brad is referring to the Treaty of Westphalia, we've really aggregated ourselves into sovereign nations and we each have a sovereign nation that represents itself in the international community and a result of which it's tied to certain respected international laws and norms, even norms in war. As an example, we have a Geneva convention in terms of how we have to treat each other where we're in war. Okay, go ahead. Absolutely.

So I would tell the aliens that for the longest time on this planet, people thought that history repeated. And it's only of late that we're realizing that history doesn't necessarily repeat, but it does rhyme. And I would back us up to 2014, where Putin, via his little green men, basically men in green fatigues that didn't have any insignias that said they were Russian military, though they were, went into the Dombas, basically went into eastern Ukraine. 2014 took it over. Now, what's really interesting is when the Soviet Union broke up at the end of the 90s, a third of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal was in Ukraine. And we went to the Ukrainians

and said, please, don't keep these missiles. Let us help you get rid of us. We're going to help you deactivate them. You don't want these. You don't have the wherewithal to maintain them. And the Ukrainians were smart. They said, listen, we'll do it. We'll agree to this. But we need a promise from you, the United States, that if we give up our nukes, nobody's ever going to invade us, nobody's ever going to take our territory. And you're going to see to it. And the U.S. said, fine, we'll sign that. It was called the Budapest memorandum. And they said, great, the ink is now dry. Get the Russians to sign it. This is pre- Putin. And the Russians did. But then Putin came to power. And what Putin did by going into the eastern part of Ukraine, he said he was there to help

Russian speakers that were in that area, which is the same excuse that Hitler used when he went into Czechoslovakia. So when you see pictures of Neville Chamberlain waving around the piece of paper saying peace in our time, that's when they decided to hand over the Sudetenland, this area that had a lot of ethnic Germans, German speakers, to Hitler thinking it would slake his thirst. So what I would tell the aliens is we are living through both in exciting and very perilous time. in our history because a lot of things that have happened in the past are happening again, not exactly the same way, but similar. Again, history doesn't rhyme or it doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. But we're also living through things in history that have never happened before,

you know, so you had LBJ that didn't go for a second term, but the Biden thing, Biden's not going for a second term, but there's a flip now. It's Kamala Harris, who's now stepped in and it's a really short race. And the Trump campaign, although they say they were prepared for it, they weren't prepared for it and they don't know how to handle this. So, you know, the Chinese are on the rise. They are becoming a near peer power. They have a very impressive Navy. We need to invest a lot more in our Navy. We need to be putting a lot more into icebreakers in particular. I'm very concerned about that's Coast Guard, but it is Navy adjacent. So the Iranians, I think, I'm on hold with the Iranians because I was really expecting a lot more with Hezbollah and the Israelis. I'm glad not

to have seen stuff. But I would tell the aliens, grab a beer, sit down. Let's watch the next X amount of weeks between now and Election Day in November, because I think not only are we living through one of the most exciting points in history, we live in the best country, in the history of the world at the absolute best moment. If you were a spirit up in heaven, a soul that was waiting to be born, and you could pick any time in any place to be born, you wouldn't know if you were a black, Jewish, gay, if you were paraplegic, if you were going to grow up rich, go up poor. If you didn't know any of that stuff, just you could pick the time and the place, you would pick America right now today. It would give you more advantages.

more opportunities, and it's exciting. So we have roles in responsibilities as citizens because we're stewards of this republic. But I got to tell you, Anthony, I'm not a baseball guy. Politics is my baseball. And this is so exciting. So that's why I would encourage that. I would hope my enthusiasm would be infectious for the aliens. Okay. So one follow-up question from the aliens. Okay. When I watch the American electoral situation, both sides think it's perilous. The Democrats think democracy is ending with Donald Trump and the Republicans or the people supporting Donald Trump. If you can call them Republicans, they think that we're going to end up with communism and Marxism in the country. So, or either of them correct or neither of them correct.

So I don't believe, so I left the Republican Party in 2018. I worked on two Republican presidential campaigns prior to that. I worked on Rick Santorums and Rick Perry's, still friends with both of them. and listen, Trump sat on his big orange ass for three hours during the insurrection, didn't do anything, could have called the people back because he wanted them to be successful. He was hoping that they would succeed. If you didn't want that to go on, you wouldn't be sitting there watching it unfold on Fox News. So he wanted that to succeed. The idea that we are giving him another shot at office is reprehensible.

It's reprehensible. That's Kevin McCarthy's fault, by the way, because McCarthy had him. Right down to Marlago and kiss his ass. He could have put them right through the ropes. And I'm going to be running for brave. He would be the most popular Republican since Reagan. Trump could be banned from office. But think about this for one second.

But hey, I'm the Speaker of the House. You're invading my house. Who would allow that? Only Kevin McCarthy would allow that. So anyway. Only Kevin McCarthy. And then you, listen, there were two impeachments and nothing happened in the Senate. So there's a lot of Republican senators who have this on their hands, too,

including Mitch McConnell, who just thought he could have broken. McCarthy could have gone to McConnell and she. Schumer and said, I'm done. You're not allowed to do that. The damn broke, Anthony, when McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago and kissed the ring. I mean, McCarthy gives us big speech about how Trump is, is completely responsible for January 6th. And then like, what, it was it, a week, five, seven days later, he's down in Mar-a-Lago. So McCarthy should not be remembered fondly by, listen, I love when he kicks Matt Gates and the pills. I love that. I think that's terrific, but I don't like McCarthy. That's but the only thing he does that I like. And I hope that history remembers him as poorly as he

deserves to be remembered. Well said. Okay. I mean, I'm loving this conversation. So I'm going to keep going. Okay. Yeah. Talk about research. Okay. You're in Afghanistan. Something you learned in Afghanistan that you could not learn about reading about Afghanistan. Go. What is that? Let's see. You know, one of the things I learned about, and I had heard about it, but I saw it firsthand. There's this, the Pashto tribe have a code of honor called the Pashtun Wally. And so with the team I was with, we didn't go into any village unless we had been invited by the elders because they would fight to the last man in the village to keep you alive because you were their guest. And what was interesting is I was with this team. And they were constantly introducing me as an author, as this American author.

And I finally had to say, why do you guys keep telling them what I do for a living? You know, can I just sit back here and let them think I'm one of you guys? And they're like, you don't understand. In Afghanistan, two of the most honorable and respected professions are doctor and author. So that was something that I've never heard before that I learned in Afghanistan. Also, the best fried chicken I ever had was in Jalalabad. Somebody's house. Yeah. Yeah. I love the food. I love the, love the food. I definitely thought it was amazing. Me too. How about, okay, how about weaponry? Where are we going with weaponry? Well, what's coming at the average citizen is not a aware of or not ready for. Okay. So there's a lot of underwater stuff that we're working on now.

There's a big drive in the United States for, in our military here, things that we could use against the Chinese in a confrontation with China, whether that's around the Philippines, which we are bound to help protect or with, which with Taiwan. So there's a lot of unmanned underwater stuff, which is very, very interesting. And also, that's a big push with NATO. NATO is now standing up a new kind of security center or an operations center because they're very concerned about non-state act, not so much non-state actors because it's hard for them, but actual states that are enemies of the West severing the undersea cables that we rely on for data transfer and all that kind of stuff. So the undersea warfare is amazing. And I think that would really shock

people, the advancements and how much money is going in there and the kind of stuff they're coming up with. It's incredible. Very sexy. Okay. It's not your last book, right, Brad? No, in fact, I just signed a brand new contract with Simon and Schuster for a few more. So happy to keep them going. When you get riders block, what do you have to do? So, you know what, Anthony, it's funny. Probably I had it several years ago when we decided to move our family back to Chicago from Park City, Utah, and I moved into a house that wasn't complete and it was just noisy and the kids and all this kind of stuff.

And I had terrible riders block. And I did some research. And the best piece of advice I've ever found, I've never found anything better than this. It's give yourself permission to write a crummy first draft. Okay. It's that desire to have everything be perfect that locks you up. And so if you have any talent at all, that crummy first draft is not going to be crummy. And there's a famous saying that you can't edit what hasn't been written.

The tap needs to be open for the words to flow. So if you give yourself permission to write that crummy first draft, that is like a battering ram that goes through writer's block, which comes from perfectionism. That's where it stems from. Okay. Amen. I've got five words for you. We're going to close it out with this. I have my producers and my team.

You have to reading the book. I'm going to say five words. I'm going to say the word. You think it whatever comes to your head. Ready? Yep. I say the Pentagon. You say what?

Professional. Okay. Conscience. Courage. I say the word service. You think of what? Patriotism. Okay.

Okay. I say two words. Scott Harvath. Is that you, Brad Thor? It is me to a large degree, but more than that, it's an homage to the men and women that go do some of this nation's most dangerous business, away from their families. I tell people that there is no American dream without those willing to protect it. And then I go further and say, what does the American dream look like for those who do protect it? And that I wrestle with a lot in the books.

Right. It's interesting because they do make incredible sacrifices. Okay? I say the two words, Brad Thor, you say what? Junior, because it makes me think of my dad, the Marine, and he's seen me. and I'm Brad Thorrude Jr. Okay, see I see incredible life force. That's what I think.

I see incredible life force, boundless energy. Mr. Thor, thank you very much. The title of the book is Shadow of Doubt. It's another incredible thriller. Who is this good-looking guy on the back of this book, by the way? Is there any? That's called Digital Botox. Is there any Filthin going on there?

It's a 10-year-old photo. I need to get back in front of the camera. God bless you. It's in bookstores now. I don't know who the narrator is, but the audio book version is fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, he's great. He's been with you for a while because I recognize his voice.

And the book is phenomenal. I wish you great success. And thank you so much for coming on an open book. Thank you. Good to be here. And please give all my love to your wonderful mother-in-law, Anthony. All right, there you go. See, you know what you're doing.

Okay. So don't miss Brad Thor books. His legendary character, Scott Harvath, is as if a James Bond got married to Superman, basically, and created Scott Harvett. This guy can do anything. It's a great, lovable character. And of course, my mother-in-law has read every one of these books, and I'm very happy to have given her a shout out on that podcast. But one thing about Brad that I love is that he has an uncanny sense of predicting the future. He can see what's going to happen. He writes about it six to 12 months before it actually does happen. So,

Pick up the book, Shadow of Doubt. It's in your bookstores now. All right, so Ma, I had a brilliant spy novelist come on. The guy's name is Brad Thorpe. Do you like spy novels? I've never seen you read one. Do you like them? Not really.

No, no, spy novels. Do you like spy novels, Ma? No. Tell me why not? Why don't you like spy novels, Maul? This is interesting. Well, I like things about the mind. You like things about the mind, okay.

What about James Bond? Did you go to James Bond movies when you were a kid, or no, when you were younger? No. No, you didn't like them. Okay. All right. So what about the CIA? What about the CIA? What about it? Yeah. What about our spies? What do you think of that? Are you glad that we have them? Of course. Okay, so tell me why. Of course. I watch you every day that someone might hurt them. Oh my God. You don't have to mention that. No one's going to hurt me. Okay. I know how to deal with the people. Don't know. There's a lot of crazy people around here. Okay, but why do you like the spies then? You don't like reading about spies, but you like the fact that we

have them. So why do you like the fact that we have them? Because I feel it's so we're safer with them. Okay. All right. That's why. Okay. All right. That's fair enough. Um, where did I get my good hair from? This guy, I'm a little jealous of this author. He's got great hair. And I think I still have pretty good hair for 60. But where did I get the hair from? For me, I had very thick hair. Your father had very fine hair. Okay. So you think, so all the good things came from you, right? All the bad things came from dad, right? Or no? I don't think you have, you happen to do that. Okay, but the ugly people in the family look like dad, or no?

I don't think my family's ugly. I'm kidding with you, Mom. I'm kidding with you because I know what you really like, okay? All right. I don't think my family's ugly. No, I was talking about, everybody looks like you in the family then, right? Let me rephrase that, right? Everyone has my nose. Now one got the doorknop.

Oh, my God. All right, Mom. Thanks, Mom. Love you, Ma. I love you very much, baby. All right, bye. 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. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures.

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