Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - Punishing Putin with Stephanie Baker

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

This week, Stephanie Baker, investigative reporter at Bloomberg, discusses her new book 'Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia.'  Stephanie offers her perspective on Putin's ascent to power, the influence of oligarchs, the impact of sanctions, and the potential dangers of weaponizing the dollar. The discussion then shifts to explore the intricate power dynamics and the intriguing relationship between Putin and Trump. 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, Stephanie Baker, is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg and has written an incredible new book titled Punishing Putin. We cover so much ground in this conversation

from the rise of Putin and the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy to the power dynamics between Putin and Trump, the potential risks of weaponizing the dollar and the future of Russia. Let's get into it. I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Ostroy'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. Okay, so joining us now on Open Book is Stephanie Baker. She's an award-winning investigative reporter at Bloomberg, but she's written an amazing book, very timely book for the election and for other reasons.

It's called Punishing Putin inside the global economic war to bring down Russia. And so there's a lot there. The book is great. And I should point out to you that Stephanie, about five years ago, maybe four years ago, H.R. McMaster, also out with a book recently, former national security advisor for President Trump, a good friend of mine. He FedEx me in the middle of COVID, Catherine Belton's book called Putin's People. which goes into the web that Putin has around him.

And of course, Progozen is now dead, but he was his chef, blah, blah, blah. You know the whole story. But this is a fascinating topic because some of the things we're doing are working, they're hurting Putin, and some of the things we're doing are weirdly helping him. And I don't think a lot of people understand that. But before we get in all that, could you please tell the viewers and listeners a little bit about your background, your reporting career, what you were doing in Moscow in the 90s?

Yeah, so I am really a post-Cold War child, graduated from college in 89, got on a plane to Prague in 1990, spent several years working there, you know, moved to Moscow a few years later, worked as a reporter, and kind of fell into being a financial reporter by accident because the big story there was obviously economic. And I ended up covering and writing about the Russian Central Bank and the finance ministry. in the run up to the rubble crash in 1998. And it, you know, it was a very formative experience for me. I didn't want to leave Russia, but ended up going back there periodically for stories, often interviewing some of Russia's richest men, the so-called oligarchs, and, you know, charting their rise as Russia rode this commodities boom, as we've seen over the past 20 years with Putin in charge. So I'm going to step back for a second.

I'm going to say a few things. You tell me if I've got it right or wrong. So the Soviet Union is collapsing. The Russian, the Russian government is developing what looks like the semblance of some level of democratic leadership under Yeltsin. But there's a tremendous amount of chaos. And frankly, the country itself is not used to democracy. And so there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear, lots of insecurity. His deputy, who is effectively once a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, but a former KGB, agent. My buddy Tom Higgins, who was in the CIA, says he knew Putin in East Berlin. They actually, the KGB and the CIA knew each other well. And here's Putin coming in and they make a determination, the GRV, they make a determination that they're going to take over the government. They're going to have Putin come in, take over the government. He's effectively going to have some semblance of fake democracy, but it's effectively going to be the former KGB officials taking over the government. What did I get wrong. I get anything wrong? It was certainly an orchestrated handover. I don't think necessarily everyone knew it was such an organized KGB takeover at the time. I think that it was a lot more

happening behind the scenes to hide that from a lot of people. I don't think people woke up, and particularly the Russian businessmen didn't quite realize that until a few years into Putin's rule. But the fact that Putin came from virtually nowhere, as you mentioned, Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, former KGB agent, not a particularly outstanding one by any stretch of the imagination, but he rose incredibly quickly through the ranks, was chosen by Boris Yeltsin, an ailing and very sick Boris Yeltsin to take over. And what he did was consolidate power, in particular, consolidate Russian state power over the economy very quickly. The 1990s was economically incredibly painful for Russia, in part due to very low, relatively speaking, low oil prices. One of the arguments I make in my book was that Yeltsin was quite unlucky because oil prices were low and that created a huge economic problem for Russia as it was trying to transform and transition away from state planning. Putin, by contrast, was quite lucky. Soon after he took over, oil prices started to rise and he has enjoyed a

relatively high price for oil. That has helped him consolidate state. control over the economy. He increased the state's control over gas giant gas prom, which was a key plank of his strategy to make Europe dependent on Russian energy supplies, which later during the war in 2022 would prove so pivotal. And a lot of the men, the oligarchs that were targeted by the sanctions in 2022 were the guys who made all their money in the 1990s through these rigged privatization deals. There are, of course, another set of oligarchs who got rich only off of Putin through state contracts, through appointments at state companies. And they are very different from the 1990s era Yeltsin oligarchs. And I try to make that distinction within the book as to how the

sanctions will play out and are affecting those two groups. Okay. So, but you, I mean, you're writing the book at this moment, and there's a reason for that. So tell us why. When the full-scale invasion started, I just knew immediately that we were witnessing the end of an era, one that started in the 90s with Russia integrating itself into the global economy with Western companies pouring in. I didn't think it was going to be over anytime soon. I saw the sanctions being ramped up very quickly. I didn't see immediately how comprehensive they would be, how much of a sort of overall strategic. push to isolate Russia economically that it was initially. But one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book is I did think that this was very different from the sanctions we've seen against other countries like Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea or Iran. This was a nuclear power invading a sovereign country which forced the response to be

primarily economic. in addition to the military supplies and aid that the U.S. and Europe have given to Ukraine, but that this was a grand experiment in some way. Never before has a country as big as Russia, an economy as big as Russia, or is integrated in the global financial system, been targeted by such comprehensive sanctions with the U.S. and Europe working together like they've never done before. And so I thought it was a really interesting test case. Does this work?

How much can military might be challenged by economic? might. You know, the U.S., Europe, UK, Japan account for about half of the global economy, and they're working together. But, you know, two-thirds of the world's population are outside that sanctions coalition, which has given Russia means for evasion. And so I thought this was just a really interesting test case. Does this kind of economic war work? Because we're in a completely new sphere at the moment. So there's mixed. reports, right? There's some people saying the economy's growing. You're describing some economic severity inside the economy. What is the true story? Are the Russian people suffering in Russia?

Russian propaganda shows people hanging out in parks, playing frisbee. You know, what's the truth? So I think it's important to define what working means. If you define working as did it force Putin out of Ukraine, clearly they're not working. But if you define working as have they imposed meaningful, substantial costs on the Russian economy that have made it harder for Putin to sustain the war. I think they are working in that respect. And you do see pressure building within the Russian economy. The problem is that Putin has put the Russian economy on a war footing. He's poured money into defense production. He's lavished bonuses on Russian soldiers to get them to go fight in Ukraine. That has produced economic growth. But I don't think economic growth is a great

metric for looking at the health of the Russian economy. A lot of people think he's created a Potemkin economy, a facade. It's facing some serious challenges now. I think the pressure of sanctions is finally beginning to build. They've got labor shortages, high inflation, you know, 8, 9 percent, interest rates at 18 percent. And he's struggling, Putin is struggling to maintain the pace of not only military recruitment, but staffing of the defense factories that he so desperately needs. And what you see, you know, just recently, and I think this is quite significant, is Washington threatening to impose sanctions on Chinese banks for doing business with sanctioned entities, particularly in the military industrial complex. And that is spooking Chinese banks. They are now,

we're seeing reports in Russia that they are delaying payments. They're actually saying, we don't even want to get paid. We just don't want to have any. to do with Russia. And it shows that in the grand scheme of things, China wants to do business with the world. It doesn't, Chinese banks don't want to be cut off from the US dollar for the sake of this business. It's not big enough. Russia is a big economy, but, you know, it's the size roughly of Italy's economy. So it's just not worth the hassle. And I think it shows the limits of the Putin-she, no-limits partnership that they declared right before the full-scale invasion started. And I think we'll have to look at how this plays out over the next few months, because if China

stops payments to Russia, then that's going to be, that's going to push Putin into a corner. Could it backfire on the U.S. And let me just give you a theory and you write about it in your book and you have your opinion. And what I mean by this is we have been using since 9-11, the dollar, we've weaponized the dollar. We use sanctions in some places it's crippling. In other places, is it's less crippling, but very effective, as you point out in the book, it's very effective here. But could it backfire? Or does the dollar reign so supreme that it doesn't backfire? There are people on Wall Street think that, you know, this is a dollar denominated world, whether people are like it or not, and we can run reckless with the dollar. Or do you think that there's risk,

potential risk to us sanctioning our enemies, and they create something, some medium of exchange away from the doubt. Fundamentally, you know, there certainly there are some risks, but I think the risks are relatively small. I do think the dollar reigns supreme. There is no real alternative. You've seen Russia and China try to come up with payment systems. They're trying to use crypto. They're even resorting to looking into a system of barter. And you see that Russians still want dollars. They want to hold their savings in dollars or euros. And I think the talk of de-dollarization is overblown. It's been talked about for the past 20 years, and you've seen the share of dollar-denominated reserves go down, but that's mostly because of countries and

central banks diversifying their holdings and mostly into euros. So I don't think it's any real threat because ultimately I think those ruble won payment systems or ruble rupee with India are pretty limited as to what they can do with that amount of money. They still need dollars. Russian savers still want dollars. And you can see that with reports of them trying to import dollars in euros secretly into Russia in violation of the sanctions. Who's suffering in Russia? Vladimir Putin, he's probably not suffering, right? He's well insulated. He's got 20,000 people guarding him. I'm sure he's eating and drinking just fine. Oligarchs inside of Russia that stayed inside of Russia, probably not suffering. But are the men and women on the street,

the middle class, lower middle class, are they suffering or is this not having a big impact? You know, ironically, although some of Russia's richest men have had their assets in the West, frozen, they have made money in Russia by either scooping up the assets of Western companies that have left and gotten those assets on the cheap. Ordinary Russians have suffered from high inflation, but I would say that level of suffering pales in comparison to what the Ukrainians are suffering from the constant threat of missile attacks and the number of dead and wounded soldiers fighting on the front lines. I think there is this common refrain about, oh, sanctions are hurting the ordinary folk.

And I just don't think it applies in this context, in part because of what Putin has done. He has tried to buy the population's support for this war by showering defense industries in remote towns with money so that they can pay high wages. He's paying out large money, large amounts of money to the families of dead soldiers. he's recruited, as I said, a lot of Russians to fight in Ukraine, doubling their bonuses. So there's been a lot of money spread around. And that's one of the reasons why they're struggling with inflation because he's sort of helicopter money. So I don't think now they're suffering from the sanctions. There's been some reports, you know, food and medicine is not included in the sanctions.

Some banks have been reluctant to make pay. for Western medicine. And that has been a bit of an issue. They are selling oil and gas into the marketplace, right? So that's one of the biggest loopholes of the sanctions regime is they came up with this very innovative policy to try to cap the price of Russian oil, saying that Russia couldn't use Western services, insurance, what have you, to sell oil to the world market unless it was sold at $60 or below a barrel. And Russia figured out within a few months away around this by assembling this shadow

fleet of rusty oil tankers to transport oil around the world. India turned into one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil. It went from importing about 1% of its oil from Russia to 40%. And that has been the biggest problem with trying to isolate Russia economically is the fact that it is an energy superpower. And how do you try to isolate an economy like Russia when it's such a major oil producer without causing harm at home, without sparking higher gas prices in the United States, or higher gas prices, natural gas prices in Europe?

And that's been the fundamental dilemma facing the West on this. And I would say if they try to do this with China, they're going to face a similar challenge, but instead of oil, they're going to face China's manufacturing capacity. Also, rare earth materials. Yeah, exactly. We need pharmaceuticals. We manufacture a lot of our pharmaceuticals over there. People forget that.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you are, one of the coolest things about your writing style is that you research, I mean, you've interviewed hundreds of people. You've gone through the gamut. And I guess, tell us a little bit about that research process. And how do you get somebody, like a Russian oligarch to talk to the investigative reporter from Bloomberg, Stephanie Baker. Go ahead. Give me the tips. Teach us. I don't take no for an answer. And I try to be as charming as possible.

Okay. Well, you are very charming. So that's working. But I mean, I don't want to get killed. I don't feel like getting the, what do they call that? The nerve gas spray to my face or you're going to feed me poisonous tea at a salon somewhere in Moscow. out, but you seem to be, people have no problem talking to you. So how do you, you know, I don't know. Well, look, there, there, there's some people who didn't want to talk to me and refuse, you know, to, to be interviewed despite my efforts. And there's some people who talked to me years ago that I referred to in my book, um, that interviews I'd done years ago before the situation in Russia turned nasty before Putin annexed Crimea. So I referenced some of those. More recently, I was talking to people who, Russian billionaires who were stuck in London having been sanctioned and were trying

to fight those sanctions. So they were right on my doorstep. And I just found it really fascinating to hear how they were dealing. How do you, how do you respond when you're a billionaire and you have no access to funds? I thought that was just a fundamental challenge to their whole world view. And I think the other thing that really I found very fascinating is that these guys have made moral choices throughout their careers, throughout the time building up their fortunes, which I go into a bit how they amass their fortunes in the 1990s. But this, the invasion in 2022 was the starkest moral choice they had to make. Do they side with the West or do they go back to Russia and side with Putin? And all of them, except for one, ended up siding with Putin and choosing to protect their fortunes

in Russia rather than criticizing what many of them would privately believe what I were reported and understand from the various people I talked to were against the war. It's like Trump. The Republicans hate them, but they tell people, oh, we love them, but then when they get in a quiet moment, like, wow, we can't stand them. And it's a good segue to my next question, because we could never figure it out. And maybe you have an answer for me. What is the hold that Vladimir Putin has on Donald Trump? I couldn't figure it out when I worked for him. H.R. McMill or none of us could figure it out. What do you think it is?

It's a really good question. It's something I have spent many years reporting on, obsessing over developing my own theories on. You know, there is a widespread belief that they've got a file on him. I mean, I'm sure the Russians have a file on me, having lived there for a number of years. I don't know. I think it's primarily his admiration for Putin as a authoritarian thing. leader. I think he views him as a strong man. I think it's more about he sees the world in a similar way as Putin does. But it is remarkable how he was very supportive of, say, sanctions against

Iran and Venezuela, but when it came to sanctions against Russia, he was very opposed at crucial turning points. And there's something about that equation that just doesn't add up without another explanation. It doesn't seem like they really met each other prior to the presidency. either. I mean, there's no documentation of the meeting, even when he went to Moscow for the America or the universe page, whatever it was the beauty page. I'm not sure which one it was. It didn't seem like they met then either. So none of us can figure this out. But man, he never says a bad word about Vladimir Putin, never once. And obviously, Mr. Trump has told many of us that he wants to pull out of NATO. Mr. Trump has told many of us that the way to end the war with

the Ukraine is just give up the Ukrainian territory to the Russians. It's complicated. You and I both know this because the Ukrainians gave up their nukes in exchange for peace and security guarantees from the West. And so it's just an interesting thing. And I tell my friends, okay, so let me get this straight. Finland and Sweden, they're bordering Russia. 74 years, they didn't join Mado on the 75th year they joined. What does that tell you? There's more people in those areas are worried about Vladimir Putin encroaching upon their land and besmirching their sovereignty.

This is a guy that wants to stay in power and project warfare. It's an Orwellian idea because it keeps him in power and it keeps the people through nationalism supporting him. What am I missing? Am I wrong? No, I think you're right. And I think the interesting thing about a possible Trump's second term is how is he going to deal with Putin a second time around? Give him what he wants. Give him what he wants.

You're going to give him what he wants. And it's, I've looked at the various people that are around Trump who are talking about a possible Ukraine solution. And actually be curious what you think, because from my reporting, there are people like Mike Pompeo who have come out very strongly in support of Ukraine and the defense of Ukraine. But from what I understand, Trump is not listening to people like Mike Pompeo. No, no, no, no. Trump likes autocracy. Trump praises authoritarianism. We have 5.7 billion people. living under authoritarianism and people don't want to believe me, that's fine, but I know. He wants to be part of that access of autocracy. So he would like to be a North American dictator. He thinks it's a cleaner way of running things. Of course, he knows better and his minions know better.

There's a gentleman by the name of Curtis Yarvin, Y-A-R-V-I-N, I would suggest that you look him up. He is a philosopher, political philosopher that believes that our democracy is messy and obsolete, and there should be a group of oligarchs and a monarchial-fifinal figure. you're running the country. And so J.D. Vance is an accolite of this man, Peter Thiel. And these are the guys that are now surrounding Donald Trump, writing things like Agenda 47, writing things like Project 2025. And it's about being white, Stephanie. If you really want me to tell you, we're white, this is their messaging. You mean black and brown people? There's going to be more of those people than the white people? Yes. Okay, so that means that black and brown people could actually run the

country because of the way the demographics work? Yes. Okay, well, we don't want that. We want white people to run the country. So let's change the rules. We no longer want the democracy. That's the message. And by the way, because there's a Cassandra effect on this, you tell people the truth, and the truth is so startling they don't want to believe the truth. Okay. But I would rather tell the truth because I've got five children. And I love my country. The country has been very good to me. I made a mistake supporting him because I didn't see all of this malevolence in the beginning. I have to own that for the rest of my life. But that's who he is.

And that's why your book is so fascinating, by the way, because he's not a great reader. But if he read your book, he would steal items out of your book that Putin has done. He would try to use them in the United States. Absolutely. And I think it's dangerous that if he does what he says he wants to do, which is end the war in 24 hours, which is a ridiculous notion, something he has not spelled out. undoubtedly as part of that to induce Putin to agree to some sort of ceasefire would be lifting of the sanctions because Putin needs some breathing room right now. He needs some space to rearm.

No, give it to him because he's also a money man. He figures, you know, he'll get a bribe. Exactly. He'll get some money from Putin. There'll be a Trump Tower in Moscow someday, something like that. Or they'll send money to a Dubai bank account that he can benefit from. And, you know, it's astonishing that we have a group of people that are responsible Americans that don't see it clearly. Okay, so we're at the point in the podcast where me and my producer, we come up with five words based on your book. And so I'm going to read out the words and then I want you to think of what comes to mind when I say the word. Are you ready? Okay. Okay.

I say the word Russia. You say what? I say rich culturally and with huge natural resources, a rich history, economically, It is facing a very uncertain future long term. It's politically imprisoned by a result of autocratic leadership, which has gone on forever, but particularly since 1970. I say the word economy. What does it make you think of? Which economy, Russia or the U.S.?

Let's say the Russian economy. I think it's a facade. I think. Pentkin, you said. Pottenkenton village. I think long term, it's facing huge challenges because it's. isolated from Western technology. And the world is moving away from hydrocarbons, which is the linchpin of the Russian economy. Okay. Yep. In the Middle East, they're concerned about that as well.

I say the word war. You say what? I think that there are different types of war. I think that we've seen sort of kinetic war play out in Ukraine with huge costs, human costs. I think you see the economic war that is played out, which is being tested in new spheres. And I think inevitable with war, there are costs and there's a price to pay. All right. Let's go to sanctions. I say the word sanctions. Makes you think what?

A limited tool, but a powerful one, if deployed correctly. I think it's a, the new, I think it is the new form of warfare. It is akin to cyber warfare now. I think we're developing this is a sophisticated tool to attack other economies in ways that we never have imagined just a few years ago. After reading your book, I hear the word sanctions. I think of crippling. I think it is a weapon that the United States has, that it can wield that no other country can wield. And it's something that Donald Trump, by the way, would redeploy.

Okay. He would redeploy it and he would turn it on the United States and the West. And so, anyway. You've seen Europe deploy sanctions in a way that we haven't seen before since 2022, using the euro in a similar way, obviously with a lot more infighting and less consensus. It's harder and there's more of a black market. It's hard. It's hard.

You've got to have access to the U.S. dollar if you really want to trade in size. I'm going to say the last word and give you the last word, Putin. I say the word Putin. You say what? Dictator, murderer, paranoid, and obsessed with his legacy. I think there's this misguided belief that he's got some Swiss bank account is going to retire at some point. And that's misunderstanding the way he runs Russia.

He runs Russia because he owns the country. He doesn't need a Swiss bank account. He has others holding assets on his behalf. And the way he rules Russia is he can just tap anyone he wants for this or that, that yacht, this palace, whatever. And that's why he's not going to go down quietly. Amen. And that's why he kills his adversaries. What's next for you, Stephanie?

Back to my day job as an investigative reporter at Bloomberg, continuing along similar reporting lines looking at Russia. Ukraine and sanctions. There's a lot more to cover. Well, it's a necessary book, and I hope you're getting the plot as that you deserve. The title of the book is punishing Putin inside the global economic war to bring down Russia. It's written by Stephanie Baker, and I would encourage you to go out and read it. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining the show today. Thank you for having me. So Stephanie raises some interesting points about the imposition of sanctions on Russia and how clever

they've been in avoiding those sanctions. And of course, this is one of the things that I got wrong. I thought the sanctions, particularly the Russians being pulled out of the swift banking system and not being able to get access to U.S. dollars, I thought that this would really punish their economy. But they've been very clever about finding ways to avoid our sanctions and using the internal economy from switching the hotel, the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow to a different name, Starbucks, getting starry coffee, all these different things that they've done. They've done a wonderful job, and the West should never underestimate the resiliency or the resourcefulness of the Russian people. I think the oligarch relationship with Putin is also interesting. Lots of the oligarchs returned back to Russia. They worked alongside of Vladimir

Putin on this invasion. Some of them, you know, are still in the West, but they've been completely emasculated as a result of these sanctions. But I think we need to understand, Russia. I think we need to do a better job of understanding what it is their long-term strategic goals are, what Putin's long-term strategic goals. If I'm going to make the argument of the Biden administration and other members of Western liberal democracies, they believe that Russia is on its way to an expansionary international relationship, meaning they're coming back into the Balkans, potentially even an invasion of Poland, et cetera. And just to play devil's advocate to support that argument, why would Sweet in Finland joined NATO. 74 years not being in NATO. And now in the 75th year, they've decided to join NATO. I think that tells you something that we should all be a little worried about in terms of where the West think Vladimir Putin's head is and his government.

So this book is an incredible book. Talks about what the West got right and wrong in the relationship with Putin over the last two decades. Please go out and buy Stephanie's new book. All right, Ma, you want to come on the podcast? asked? Yeah, why not? Why not? Of course you do. You can't help yourself, right? I can't help myself. Yeah, you like being a star, ma'am? Yeah, I'm like you. Oh, you're like me. You're a natural. You're a natural star. You like the spotlight, ma. Come on, you can tell the truth.

And I have to work on it. Oh, you have to work on it. But you know, but you know you like the spotlight, right? Yeah, I'm getting old, but. All right, ma. Stop with the getting old. Stop with the getting old. Okay, so my guest wrote a book about Vladimir Poo. Now, you don't like Putin, right? You've told me many times. Of course not. I think he's evil. Okay, what don't you like about him, Mom? What, why? Why? Some people in America like him for some reason. I don't like him. You don't like him. Why don't you like him?

Well, first of all, he's a Napoleon attitude because he's so short. Oh, okay. I think he's very, very dangerous to our country. Are you kidding me? You think he has a small? You think he has a small pee-p like Donald Trump, or it's just this height? Maybe even smaller. Who knows?

Oh, my God, you're so nuts. Oh, my God. Okay, so let me ask you something, Mom. Why are the Russian people so good at surviving in your mind, though? We've hit them with sanctions. We've hit them with, we pulled all of our U.S. corporations, all of the Western corporations out of Russia. Why are they such survivors? What do you think of the Russian people?

Well, first of all, I like some of them because I worked in a shop doing makeup many years ago. Me too. I love the Russian people. culture. Of course I love Russian people. And we had, we had some Russian people that were very nice and they have a certain aura. They're like tough. You know, like

nothing is too much for them to do. You know, they're just, they're workers. They're willing to work hard and they're willing to make sacrifices, right? That's part of the culture. Okay. So what do you think the relationship is, the weird relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin?

What do you think that's all about, ma? I think he's sick to do that. I think that's a terrible thing that he's like that when he's killing people in the Ukraine. And he thinks he's going to say a trying word. His shit stinks and his parts give him away. Okay. So you think Putin's evil and the fact that Trump supports him, you think it's as a level of dishonesty. Yeah.

Why does he do that, though? Well, he's narcissistic and he feels like a hurrah that he's done it, you know, that he's accomplished it. He thinks that that's an accomplishment. Right. He likes the contrariness. nature of it, right? Yes. Mm-hmm.

Okay. But if he wins, he's going to help Putin, don't you think, in Ukraine? Well, first of all, I think that he has a certain demeanor. I will say that all the time. You wouldn't know he's a quack to me. He has a demeanor to foreign people because he's big and broad, and he's dangerous by Putin. You don't like that aspect of him, though, right? Or no.

That he's cookey? Yeah. I think that, no, I do because if they get on his nerves in their country, I think that. Okay, so you're taking the position that Trump can inspire fear in people because of his lack of predictability. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah, I can't believe that. All right.

And what do you think about his relationship with Putin? You know, you don't like that, right? I don't like that, no. No, I don't like that. I think that is terrible. All right. Thanks, Mom. 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. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country?

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