Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - The Next American Century with Dmitri Alperovitch

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

How can America beat China in the race for the twenty-first century? Today's guest Dmitri Alperovitch answers that question in his new book, World on the Brink. They then move on to the election, discussing its impact on US-China relations and why Xi Jinping could make his decision on Taiwan sooner than we think…  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, Dmitria Perrovich, is one of the few people who accurately predicted when, why, and how Russia would invade Ukraine.

He got it right, and he got it right early. He's now out with a new book that explains how America can beat China in the race for the 21st century. Dmitri is someone we should be listening to, so let's see what he has to say. I'd like to take a second to recommend my friend Andy Astroy's great podcast in 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. Joining us now on Open Book, Dmitri Alperovich, co-founder and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, but he's a brilliant guy.

been at the Saul conference many times. He is the author of World on the Brink, How America Can Be China in the Race for the 21st Century. Dimitri, it's great to have you on. The book is phenomenal. Thank you. I have been passing out your book to people who think they know something about our national security just because they have money. Sometimes people have like high net worth, so therefore they know everything about everything, which of course they don't. But you do know a lot, if not everything about this. So tell us first a little bit about your background on becoming a national security expert, and then we'll get into the book. Absolutely. So I'm an immigrant to this country, a proud American by choice. I was born in Moscow in the 1980s and immigrated

when I was a child. Grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, went to Georgia attack, focused on both cybersecurity attack as well as international relations and then went into the cyber field. Had a good career, founded a company you may have heard of called CrowdStrike, now one of the largest cybersecurity company in the world, took it public and in 2020 decided to focus my energy on philanthropy and giving back and founded this think tank called Solerata Policy Accelerator that really focuses on how do we make sure that this century, just like the last one, remains an American century and confronting the threat of great powers, particularly China, that present, I think, a fairly existential threat to our well-being and our dominance in this

world. Okay. So what years you grow up in Moscow? What year were you born in Moscow? 1980. Okay. So in 1985, I was in the U.S. embassy in Moscow. And I was upstairs drinking Budweiser beer with the U.S. Marines.

And one of those embassy Marines got honey trapped. you don't remember this because you were only five years old, but he got in a lot of trouble. And it was a tough place, Moscow in the 1980s. When's the last time you were in Moscow? So I left in 94. I have not been back. I've not been sanctioned by Putin, so I've been sanctioned. So this is like a badge of honor you're wearing.

You've been sanctioned by Putin. I'm trying to get sanctioned by China having written this book, so we'll see if that works out. Okay. They're not going to spray any nerve gas on you or anything of that. You're not that important, right? I don't want to get sanctioned by Iran. They don't mess around. Okay, so let's talk about that. We have 5.7 million people that live in some form of autocracy, which means that their freedom has been taken away. Your book writes about the differences between freedoms, democracies, countries that believe in liberalism. And I mean liberalism, the Western liberal idea of expressing your personal freedom, not conservative or liberal. You write that these autocracies are very dangerous because they have centralized power, a result of which they can.

can make these decisions and they can move the masses through fear to project their will around the world. And they're all a little crazy. They all have these weird ambitions. So let's start with China. The podcast listeners on Open Book are the American president and you're walking into the White House Situation Room and you're going to brief them on China and assume that this is a domestic governor that just became president. This doesn't have your national security experience. So tell us what he needs or she needs to know about China. Well, the first thing and the reason I wrote this book is that I believe we're in a path to conflict. I was one of the first ones geopolitical analysts that have predicted that Putin was going to invade Ukraine months before

it happened back in December of 2021. And what got me so convinced were basically five reasons. I believe he was driven by history, his own distorted view of history, not believing that Ukraine was a country, his view of destiny, Russia's destiny, his personal destiny to take Ukraine to to control it. And then security, geography, and most importantly, ego. He wanted to be the one to do it, not just leave it off to the future generations. And I believe those same five reasons are playing out in the Indo-Pacific with China wanting to take Taiwan and particularly Xi Jinping wanting to take Taiwan and do it on his own watch. It's not an accident that both men are in their 70s and Putin started this war when he's in the 70s. And she is now also looking at sort of the twilight of his power.

He's going to be in office probably until 2032. He's going to be 79 and 32 when his last term, likely last term, runs out. Unlike our system, perhaps, they don't tend to elect their leaders into the 80s. And beyond that, of course, you've got health concerns and the like. He's not the healthiest guy in the world, judging by his waistline. So he's going to be thinking about that period, likely from 2028 to 232, as the window for him to launch this invasion of Taiwan to achieve what he calls the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation that can't happen until Taiwan becomes a part of China, which, by the way,

it has never been. This is one of the myths that they proliferate. In the book, we go through the history of Taiwan and how there's never been a moment in history when whoever fully controlled China also fully controlled Taiwan. But Taiwan is really important to China for strategic reasons beyond just historical. And it is really important to the United States. And I fear that the discussion in the United States about Taiwan has been reduced to chips. And look, chips are really important. They're the core of our digital economy. Nothing can be produced without chips as we've seen cars, microwaves, you know, computers, obviously, TVs and the like, all need chips. And Taiwan produces about 90% of the world's most advanced chips, but about 40% of all

chips. And it's really, really important. But it's always been important to the United States. You know, in 1950, General Douglas MacArthur called it the unsinkable aircraft carrier because of a strategic position, effectively being the anchor point of the so-called First Island chain that spreads from Japan through Taiwan into the Philippines and onward. And it plays a critical role in containing China. When China looks out at the world, what does it see? It sees itself fully contained by U.S. military bases and U.S. allies, right? From South Korea, American army troops there, 28,000 Americans, air bases, radar installations, and the like, the Japanese islands, the headquarters of the 7th Fleet, Marines in Okinawa, Taiwan at the center of that

viewed as an outpost of American power, and then completing that arc, the Philippines, where we were once again for the first time in 30 years, we established in military presence and the bases there. So they feel themselves contained by us, which is why they want Taiwan. And of course, we want to keep them contained because if we uncork China, then we'll allow them to dominate Asia, one of the most important regions of the world economically, and use that as a power projection platform around the world. Okay, okay, so I've done some homework. I'm this newly elected American president,

and it looks like there's 100 miles that separate the mainland between the island of Formosa. It also looks like it's a rough terrain on a lot of that island. There's a lot of jungles and mountainous terrain, four plus million people living in Taipei, but also it's hard beach access. I'm not going to really be able to have a Normandy beach landing. I've got to go 100 miles.

I've also got U.S. air superiority in the area. And I'm going to suggest that the Chinese, they take it seriously because, you know, it would be so embarrassing to them if they go for the island of Formosa, they go for Taiwan, and they're blasted proverbially out of the water. So assess the risk over the next three to five years that the Chinese government, which you and I both know want Taiwan. You write about this in your book. She wants to go down. His legacy is to unite the island. This is something Mao couldn't do. She wants to do it. And you and I know, Demetri, the one problem with these older politicians, they don't have to live in the world that they're making. Okay. And so they're doing things now that could be on the fringe of irrational. So go ahead.

He's invading in the next one to five years? I think four to eight years is the timeline. They're not yet ready. But of course, he's surrounded himself by yes, man. So even if they're not ready in 2028, I'm not sure he's going to have anyone around him that will tell him that, just like no one told Putin. that invading a country of 40 million people, Ukraine, with 190,000 troops is lunacy, but he proceeded nevertheless. So you may have the same situation developing in China. And you're absolutely right, Anthony, the beach invasion that most people sort of imagine, this Norman D2.0, you know, saving private rind Chinese edition, that's not reality. That's not the reality of this island. I know you've been there. The terrain is very rough, as you say, mountains, rivers,

bridges, tunnels. You know, you can land on some of these beaches. even though they're very shallow. They've been preparing for it since 1946. That's right. And particularly since 1979 when we of course left our military troops left Taiwan. But the key to this, I think, is the infrastructure. And the book actually starts out with a fictional, hopefully fictional scenario of invasion that might unfold in 2028 and how China might go about this.

And the key to all of this is the port of Taipei. I believe they have to seize that port, which is facing the Taiwan straight. That port, by the way, did not exist 12 years ago. It was only finished in 2012, and it provides easy access into the city of Taipei. And it's perfect infrastructure if you do an airborne assault to take that port to secure it. And then you can bring in these massive roll-off ships that can unload huge amounts of logistics, armored vehicles, troops that you need to take over this island of 23 million people. So that is key.

And then the other thing that's really great about this port from the Chinese perspective is right next to that port is the opening to the Tomswe River, which leads you right into Taipei. So if they can unload, as I write in this scenario, these so-called El-CAC boats with a huge turban fans at the end of them and have the Chinese Marines use these boats that can go about 80 knots an hour down this river. They can be in the heart of Taipei in the government district right next to the presidential palace, right next to the Ministry of National Defense in about 15 minutes. So taking that port and then using it to also go down the river and try to do a

Decapitation strike against key government leaders and installations is going to be really, really critical. And then, of course, you unload huge forces to, you know, drive around the islands and then try to take over military bases and key population centers. So I'm going to, I've read the book and I said, I've got to dying to ask Dimitri this question. I'm just going to ask the question. Okay. So I sort of feel like we're victims of some of our success over the 80 years.

So hear me out. You know, you could be an American negativist and say, well, we lost and sort of pulled out of Vietnam. We sort of lost and pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, blah, blah. Or you can be an American positivist and say, wow, they projected a global footprint at the world's most powerful Navy, 11 aircraft carrier squadrons, and they've got this footprint that is suppressing. To use a quote from Thomas Hobbes and the Leviathan, we are at our best.

We are at our most peace and prosperity. when there's one hegemon that is suppressing the internecine conflicts, and America has done that. But what I'm wondering is we're a victim of this success because there seems to be some complacency in our leadership. You know, Ronald Reagan took Taiwan seriously. Kennedy and Nixon, in their first debate, they were talking about the islands of Kimoy and Matsu. We don't do that anymore. We call each other names like fat and stupid and lazy and dumb and crooked. but we used to have these very vigorous debates and people actually understood what was going on.

Are you worried that we're not paying attention? Are you worried that are, you know, sometimes when you get your bell rung, you're ready for an avalanche. But if you haven't got your bell run, you're skiing at the top end of the slope. You're absolutely right. And this was the reason I wrote this book to raise the alarm bells because I was trying to do that with Ukraine. For three months, I was telling people he's invading this winter. It's happening. No one believed me.

Only towards the very end that people start taking it seriously in Europe to the very end. I remember I was at Munich Security Conference the weekend before the war was launched, talking to senior German officials and others across Europe. And they were saying, this is all nonsense. There's no going to be any war. Of course, four days later, we had this massive invasion that took place. And I believe we're in another path to war where the stakes for the United States are much more dire than they are in Ukraine.

As important as Ukraine is, Taiwan is a thousand times more important to our economy, again, chips. but more importantly to containing China to make sure that China does not become the world's greatest superpower and starts bossing around our friends and allies around the world and diminishing American power in the security realm and the economics realm. This is really, really vital and I am very concerned we're not paying enough attention to it. Okay. I mean, this is why you're writing the book, but what do we do here, Dimitri? I'm worried. Okay, I'm worried that we've got ideological leadership. We've got sclerotic leadership.

I'm going to say something that as Russian, you're American, but you were raised in Russia. You know a lot about Russian cultures, so you're going to not like. I feel like we're in an oligarchic duopoly now where the power structure is just circulating among Washington elite, and they are spending money recklessly, and they are occurring favor with lobbyists, and we've got big food convincing them to destroy our food, so we're a lot fatter. We've got big pharma convincing them to let us take and use. experimental drugs and vaccines. We've got big military where the planes are falling out of the sky, but they just, you know, hand us the money and there's a $2 trillion situation going on at the

Pentagon, and we don't even know where the money is, and there's nobody ever going to audit it. Any of this make you worried, or you're not worried about any of this, and if you're not, tell us what? Well, there's no question that we have a lot of problems. We're very divided. We have all these issues you mentioned. But the book is actually very optimistic because it argues that we're much stronger than we think that we are and that China is much weaker. You know, we are in the new Cold War and I make the case how this Cold War is actually very similar to the first Cold War, but China is actually much weaker than the Soviet Union ever was. It doesn't have the Warsaw Pact. It doesn't have the military strength and the global power projection that the Soviet Union has. It doesn't have

the attractiveness of ideology that the Soviets had for the first, at least part of the Cold War with communism. And on and on and on. It does have a bigger economy, but even that is diminishing, as you well know with the Chinese growth stagnating huge issues with their real estate market and the bubble that's there. By the way, in 2008, at the height of our crisis, real estate was 10% of our GDP. It is 30% in China, just enormous in terms of the impact that that's going to have to drag their economy down. They have the population collapse that's taking place. They're going to go from about 1.4 billion people they have today to 550 million or so by the end of the century, just unimaginable and unprecedented human history.

So we have all these advantages. We have a greatest allies in the world, greatest military, despite all the issues. So this is doable. We can deter China. And this is what we ultimately need to do, right? There are three possibilities here. First possibility is that the Goldilocks scenario that they never even try because they become convinced that it's impossible and the risks to them are too high.

Or they go for it and they win or lose. And I argue that those two, regardless of what happens, I mean, obviously it's better for them to lose, but it's a disaster, right? $10 trillion of market value wiped out. Not to mention the risk of nuclear conflict. We've never fought kinetically a nuclear power before, and ideally we won't. The loss of American lives is something we haven't seen probably since World War II, maybe even greater, on a daily basis. So this has to be prevented.

We have to deter them. And we have to do everything possible, militarily, economically, diplomatically, because his strategy is going to be, how do I keep the U.S. out of it? Because he knows that if we won't intervene, Taiwan is screwed, right? They don't have the capabilities to defend themselves on their own. They need our help. And using economic leverage, trying to make sure that we're reliant on China for critical minerals like rare earths and lithium and cobalt and so forth, reliant on them on semiconductors, which they're trying to achieve right now, reliant on them for EVs, batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and the like as we're transitioning to green energy. and relying economically in every other respect,

he's going to think that that may help deter us from engaging and just accepting that Taiwan is going to fall to China. That's what we've got to prevent. We've got to make sure that we achieve independence in all these areas and that we make China more aligned on us in a lot of these areas, particularly semiconductors, which are so essential, of course, to AI applications and the modern economy. And on top of that, we've got to make sure that we're investing

in the right things around military. I argue that we've been too enamored with these really exquisite but incredibly expensive platforms. These aircraft carriers are cost $14 billion now. The last generation, the Nimitz class aircraft carrier, was four. The four class is 14. I argue that we don't have three and a half times the value that we're getting for that 14 billion. We got to get back to the basics and start investing in mass numerous numbers of missiles, air defense systems, mines, ships. we need quantity over quality at this point.

If Donald Trump wins this election, is that good or bad for this problem that you're writing about in the book? Well, that's a hard question. I'm not sure even Donald Trump could answer it. You know, he's made statements that Taiwan doesn't matter, that, you know, they're right off the coast of China. China should just have it. But, you know, he's also taking a very strong anti-China position during the course of his administration, as you know. So, you know, the benefit that Trump has is this sort of crazy man strategy that, Nixon applied and Trump applied as well, where, you know, we saw this with Soleimani, right?

The military presented him with three options. They thought that this crazy option of killing Soleimani was just thrown in thinking that he would never take it. He's like, oh, I like that one. Right. So no one knows what he's going to do, which makes it very dangerous for them. So there's deterrent value there. But, you know, if he does say, well, you know, China, I'll make a deal for you for, you know,

buying your soybeans. I'll just let you have Taiwan. That would be a problem. unclear what he's going to do. I don't think he even knows. Okay. Make no mistake, this is a very, very tough call. Any president, I don't care who they are,

when they're going to be looking at this, this idea that you're going to go to war with China, have enormous economic impact, loss of life that we haven't seen, you know, in so many decades, and, you know, the potential for nuclear escalation. This is a very, very tough call for anyone. And the problem that has,

with the Biden administration is that they've done some some good things. They've done just recently the tariff announcements on Chinese semiconductors and critical minerals that they're producing to try to even the playing field for our own companies. They've done some export controls to try to limit China's ability to project power in certain industries. They're building up forces in the Pacific. So directionally, it's all correct. I worry that it's moving way too slowly that because we're not calling this a Cold War. And I think labels matter. We're still in this mindset of, well, we're cooperating with China. We're competing with them in some areas. And that's just nonsense. We are absolutely in a Cold War that is very similar to the first Cold War. And the only thing that

matters is winning. And you're not going to get anywhere with China on fentanyl. You're not going to get anywhere with China on climate change. We've been trying to do this with them for decades now. And of course, they haven't given an inch because they see that it is a very transactional thing, that if they're going to give us something, they want something back. And the biggest thing they want, of course, is Taiwan. So we got to get serious here and start moving fast because if I'm right, I hope I'm not, that this can happen as soon as four years from now, there's no time to waste. Okay.

I'm going to make you the global national securities are for the United States. So, I mean, anything you say goes. Thank you. Forget about the Congress. Forget about everything. Everything you say goes. Okay, ready? Yeah.

We've got to go around the world quickly because unfortunately. These are short pat punchy podcast. You ready? Yep, let's do it. Okay. Ukraine, what do we do? Look, I think Ukraine is a war of attrition now. It's really, really hard for them to win in the near term because Putin is in it for the long

haul. And we got to make sure that Ukraine can survive for the next five, 10 years that it might take for the Russians to lose their will to keep fighting this and not achieving the end results. So we got to figure out how to make this sustainable. I think the biggest element of that is going to be. figuring out how Ukraine can get money without relying on American taxpayer because we're not going to be cutting $60 billion checks to them every year like we have been. And the key to that is the Russian

reserves, the 300 plus billion reserves that are held at Euroclear in Brussels. We got to figure out how to get access to that and start giving it to Ukraine. Gaza is real. Well, Hamas has to go. There's no other solution to get to any sort of accommodation in that region. So, you know, I think that that conflict is going to go on for a while while Israel tries to exterminate Hamas and Gaza. Okay. And containment of China vis-a-vis Taiwan? Three things. Deter the invasion of Taiwan militarily and economically by making sure that we're building

up capabilities in the region, particularly asymmetric capabilities to sink this Chinese fleet if need be as it's coming across the Taiwan Strait. Increase our economic leverage over China, prevent them from developing their own chips so that they can keep buying chips from us, secure our critical mineral supply chain, making sure that we're refining and processing either domestically or in allied countries and are not dependent on China,

and invest in innovation. Make sure that in critical areas of technology, AI and autonomy, biotech and synthetic biology, aerospace and green technologies, we are the leaders and we're not dependent on China. We have to win that race to win the broader Cold War and punish China as it's engaging in IP theft and subsidization of its,

its industries, use sanctions, use export controls, work with allies to make sure that they're not able to win this race by competing unfairly. I have a buddy of mine. He's 76 years old. He's a Vietnam vet. He says, you know, our mistake, you know, someone will judge us 50, 500 years or now. They'll say, oh, the mistake they made was the United States decided to do business with dictators.

So we were in business with Vladimir Putin. We were trying to chum up to him. We brought him into the G7, made it the G8. We were in business with the Chinese. We brought them into the World Trade Organization. You may not be old enough to remember this. The reused protests in 1993 about the World Trade Organization. Guess what happened?

Everything they said at those protests happened. Wall Street blew it off. Washington blew it off. But we've hollowed out our manufacturing. Do you think we made a mistake doing business with dictators? No, I don't because we can't remake the world in our image. We have to work with the world as it is. And, you know, if we only work with democracies,

you're going to cut off half of the world. And in fact, the problem I have with the Biden administration's strategy of, you know, democracies versus authoritarianism, remember he had that summit of democracies. You know who he excluded? He excluded, he excluded Singapore. He excluded Bangladesh, obviously, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, et cetera. Well, guess what? We need those countries.

You can't just tell them if you're not with us, you're against us, go join China. That makes them stronger. So I don't think we should be dividing the world on those parameters. We should be looking for allies. wherever we can, wherever we can get them. And look, even China, if we manage to come to an accommodation on the Taiwan issue, and by that, I mean that we prevent them from taking over Taiwan and preserving the status quo, we can build a better relationship with China. Just like we did with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, we had a detent, we had arms control, and so forth. We can get that with China, ultimately. We'll still

have a Cold War. We'll still compete, but we will not go to war. But we have to deter them from taking Taiwan first. It's less about their system. Look, I would love to see Xi Jinping and Communist Party go. But that may not happen. And there's absolutely nothing we can do to change that. It's up to the Chinese people to determine what kind of government they have. I'm personally done with regime changes. I don't know about you. We have not had a good track record of that.

So let's not try to remake the world. Let's work with it as it is and make sure that we're focusing on American core interests. It brilliantly said. I have five famous words that I, at the end of each of my podcast, my producer and I, we come up with some words after I'm reading the book. And then I ask the author to respond. Okay, be a sentence, a word. You ready?

Yep. I say TikTok. You say what? Divest. Okay. I say, so it's very dangerous to the United States, spyware on your phone, and we're crazy to allow that to happen. They would never allow that in their country.

That's right. We need reciprocity, first and foremost. It has to be fair. If Twitter is not in China or X is not in China, TikTok shouldn't be here. I say Cold War. Cold War, too. We are in a Cold War that is very similar to the first one. We have a global competition for supremacy.

see we have an arms race. We have a flashpoint, regional flashpoint. What Taiwan is today was West Berlin back then. And by the way, we even have a space race. We're both Russian to get to the moon. Does that sound familiar? It sounds familiar. I was a lot younger. I had higher metabolism and more stem cells when that was going on, Dimitri. I say Taiwan. You say what? The turrets invasion. It has to be kept in the western orbit. Yes, there is a sort of human rights argument to be made there that these are free people, it's a democracy, but more importantly, it's our national security interests to make sure that Taiwan does not fall to China because how goes Taiwan, goes Asia. And you don't want China to dominate Asia, where you have almost

50% of the world's GDP, most of the economic growth, most of the supply chains, that would be disaster for the United States. Yeah, you know, if Franklin Roosevelt was alive today, he would be giving speeches about our need not to be isolationist and our need to understand whether we're like it or not, we're tied into each other. And since we have 5.7 billion people in autocracies, the rest of us have to stick together and protect each other. And guess what? We're the biggest most powerful on the block. And whether you like or dislike the responsibility, you have the mantle of the responsibility. And you've got to find leaders that really understand that. Look, we should be for the status quo. We should be for peace. We don't want things to change.

it's China and Russia. They're a revengeanists that are trying to change that status quo. Yeah. And we're obviously not looking to, yeah, we're not looking to knock them out. We're not looking to change their systems. We're just looking to keep people that live in freedom, stay, staying in freedom. I say the word China. You say what? I say China must be deterred. You know, Cato the Elder used to say in the Roman Senate 2100 years ago, Carthago Delenda Est, Carthage, must be destroyed. I end the book also with Latin, Sinna de Terente, Sun. China must be deterred. That needs to be the organizing principle of our national security policy for the next decade. Okay. Very well said. I say the word America. You say what? America the strong. We've got unbelievable advantages. The access to capital that we have,

the entrepreneurship, the innovation, the education system, we are still the place where the rest of the world wants to come. Right. We have huge problems at our border, I'm not encouraging sort of uncontrolled borders. But look, you've got almost 4,000 Chinese jumping across that border every single month. Now, many of them are probably coming over for nefarious activities, but many of them are also seeking opportunities because you've got 24% unemployment, youth unemployment in China. The economy is going south. No one is jumping over the borders of China to come to China or Russia for that matter, right? People want to come here because we are the best country in the world. I've benefited from that personally. So many people are as well. We need to

have controlled immigration, but we want the best and the brightest around the world to come to this country and make it better. It's brilliantly well said. So I'm going to leave you with the last word. And I'm going to butcher your last thing because I'm an Italian from Long Island, but that's just too bad for you, Dimitri. Thank you very much. Dimitri Alperovich. Is that close enough? You got it. Alperich. Not bad, right? Author of World on the Brink, How America Can be China in the race for the 21st century. And it is a delight in an honor to have you on. And I hope we stay close and we can get you back. I'd love to. Thanks so much, Anthony. So Dimitri's book is incredible. You can also listen to it on Audible, which is also great. We are in a cold war with China.

There's no question about it. All of the great national security thinkers believe this. And of course, the Chinese government has decided to take it in this direction against the West. And I understand that. America can win this race for the 21st century. but we need better coordinated leadership. We certainly have the resources. We have the great technology. We have the great culture of innovation. But we need that to be in symphony with our political leaders.

And Demetri makes a very compelling case. It's a couple of simple things that we can do to make the next century, an American century. But let's face it, we are up against it with China. At least the good news in Washington is both sides now recognize that. And both sides seem committed to a workable solution. Today I had on my show a guy by the name of Dmitri, and he's like an expert on Russia. And so let me ask you this question, Ma. You don't like Vladimir Putin.

You've said that before on the show. I don't like him at all. All right. So how do you get the war to end? By getting rid of him by killing him. Right. That's really the only way, right? That's what I think.

But he's pretty smart because he has people testing the food because he's sure that one day he's going to get killed. Right, 20,000 guards, people testing the food, people cooking the food. You know, he's like, why would anybody want to live like that so hated? You know what I mean? Because it is nuts. I think he needs to pack away, and there are people. Right. All right, well, let me ask you this, Mom.

We've always gotten along pretty well with the Chinese. What do you think is going wrong there now? Well, I think we gave them too much power. You know, they have slave labor for the people that are innocent, and the ones that are on top. And so we helped them a little bit too much, and they took advantage of it. That's what you think.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, but we're still on top in your mind, or no? Absolutely. Okay, so why? We don't, we don't, fortunate that so many immigrants are in. Okay. All right. You're always on, you're always on point, Ma, as usual.

So you're, uh... I am? Yeah, I think so. Am I? Yeah. So before I let you go, so what's going to happen now? So you sort of think that, like, Kamala Harris could beat Trump now, right?

That's what you sort of think now, right? And I think he's taking out of term, and he gets off on it because he's insecure. And I think Kamala Harris and the poor... Right, so you don't want her to give away... Well, you wanted to take care of the middle class and the poor, but you don't want her to give stuff away, right? No. Yeah, you have to have people working for things.

I understand that. All right, ma'all right, ma'am. Thank you for joining the podcast. All right, love you, ma. Thank you, ma'am. I love you, ma'am. Okay. All right, love you, ma'am.

Thank you. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram.

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