March 2026 Q&A: America Going Broke, Working for Trump, Books You Must Read

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Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Happy March, everybody.

In New York, it's still cold, but the spring is on the way. So good good news and good times ahead.

So I've gone through almost everybody's comments. I just want to say thank you to everybody.

Those of you that you didn't get to, please send them because we're doing this once a month.

And we're looking at YouTube, X LinkedIn, Instagram, and it's just really great stuff coming in.

And I really do appreciate your support for the show. And if you enjoy Open Book or any of the

other content that we're putting out on our channel, could you do me a favor? There's a subscribe

button somewhere because you hit the subscribe button. It just helps us out with the algorithm.

I would be grateful. Okay, so let's get into it. And we will start with YouTube.

This is Eda Sandaval, 4164. Citizens United was pivoted in our politics. How could

that be reversed or reformed to separate private money and influence in American politics? So

no question. I talk about this all the time. That decision in January of 2010 has been a disaster

for the United States because literally the rich people, the rich corporations bought the

Congress and ultimately the president. And I'll just go back 15 short years ago. These guys

are now spending five times the amount of money that they were one spending in the political

theater. So this is just a staggering sum. And I'll just let people know, if you look at the

legislative agenda over the last 15 years, it's big food, big business, big pharma, it's corporate

tax cuts, it's corporate welfare, bailouts for banks, bailouts for other industries.

And the little guy, now the little guy's not in there. And that's the big problem,

and that's why you're seeing this systemic rise of populism and this great frustration with

systems. So what do you do? Well, you could have this Supreme Court reverse the decision.

They did that on a racial discrimination case. They said Plessy versus Ferguson,

you could have separate equal facilities for blacks and whites that caused tremendous amounts

of segregation in the South and other other areas. It took 80 years, Brown versus Board of Education

sort of reversed that decision. So they could reverse it. You could get to the Congress and say,

hey, we got to stop it. And you could congressionally legislate it away. I don't really think you

could do it through executive action. Actually, I've looked at that. So those are the big ways

to do it, but it does need to be reversed. We probably would even, if we had the strength to

do this, we would probably prefer a constitutional amendment. Something that really codifies this.

Okay, Instagram, island construction, will the federal debt hurt us significantly? It's a big

maybe on that. I can't say definitively if the federal debt is going to hurt us significantly.

We have $40 trillion of debt, but we really do have a tremendous economy and tremendous resources

in the country. I remember the United States itself owns about 28% of the land of the 50 United

States. And so there's assets, resources, oil, natural resources under the land. You know,

somebody did a balance sheet analysis of the U.S. and said, probably I've over $100 trillion in

assets on the balance sheet. And with $40 trillion of the debt, it's serviceable and or manageable,

where things would get hairy is if our tax base started to shrink. And we couldn't meet the

interest payments through the tax base. And we ended up having to borrow the money to pay back

the interest on the money that we borrowed. That would cause what my friend Ray Dalio calls a

super debt cycle. And so we got to hope that that doesn't happen. So could it hurt us, yes, or

there are ways to correct the cure? But again, this would require the Congress to slow down the

growth of spending. And if you do that just slightly and just let the economy's growth catch up

to the growth in spending, we probably would be fine. You can't spend 27% of the GDP from the

federal spending. The right numbers and when Clinton was running a budget surplus is closer to

20%. Now maybe you can't get there overnight, but you can get there. And that's something that we

should really be considering. LinkedIn, Caray, Ivar, that's good. Man, I really hope I pronounced

her name right now. If I didn't, I apologize. But what is the biggest risk to global markets over

the next five years that most institutional investors are still ignoring? So, you know, listen,

there's lots of risk. I don't want to say that there isn't, but there's also a tremendous amount

of opportunity. So some of the risks are dislocation in jobs. We have to be really careful about that.

We have to manage that process as it relates to AI and the introduction of robotics, the

introduction of technology that can help people work less. We just want to make sure they don't get

paid less while they're working less because that could set up a nightmare. Second risk is always

geopolitical. Everybody knows that we're in a fight right now with Iran. I, as an institutional

investor, of course, would like that to settle simmer down because we like more tranquility for

markets. It allows for capital to flow around the world and the crease prosperity globally.

But yeah, those are the risks, basically. And I don't really see

unknown, unknowns like Donald Rumsfeld used to say that people aren't really talking about.

But if I think of things in the next question and answer session, I'll bring them up. But those

are the big ones. I think those are the most important ones. Okay. Now, this is a Benjamin

797-836-07 in the darkest times. What philosophy should we adopt? Well, listen, I'm obviously a

practicing Catholic. I've said that often. I'm a Roman Catholic, raised Catholic, and so

I have my faith that helps me get through a lot of difficult times. I have talked about

stoicism on this program and the idea that we're only here really for a minute and to just take

in today, if you can live in the present, you can really de-escalate your anxiety. And so

Laozoo, the Chinese philosopher, for many thousands of years ago, one said, if you're thinking too

much about your past, well, guess what happens? You have regrets. Of course you do. You made decisions

that you wish you didn't do. You really can't go back and change them. And so sometimes we live with

some level of depression or regret. If you think too much about your future, we'll guess what?

The future is unknown. At least it's unknown to us. And so as it's unfolding, it can create

anxiety because we recognize it's just so little about life that we ourselves actually control.

So what Laozoo said, don't think too much about the past. You'll get depressed. Don't think too

much about the future. You'll end up getting anxious. But think about the present. Focus your mind

in the present and let the past go away. Get that millstone of regret off your neck. I mean,

I don't, I got my ass fired from the whiteouts after 11 days. I don't sit around and kick myself

in the pants every morning when I wake up. Take the millstone of regret, put it down, go forward,

and don't worry about the future because just only so much of it that's in your control. Focus on

today. That's where lots of the variables are that you yourself can control. Okay, this is

Ort Slamro, 9661, Hi Anthony. In a recent reel, you said you decided against working at a law

firm after finishing law school. Why did you make that choice? So it's a great question. It's

about a calling. You know, I worked at a law firm for the summer. Actually two summers I worked

law firms and you know, listen, a lot of my friends now 40 years in the law, they've had amazing

experiences. They made great money. It's a phenomenal career. I don't want to underestimate the

phenomenal nature of the career, but it just wasn't for me. And I knew if I found my way to Wall Street

and I found my way ultimately into the money management, that was more interesting. I feel like I

love business and the business of understanding other businesses is being a capital analyst or

a capital allocator on Wall Street. So it's about a calling. And remember the word vocation,

it comes from the Latin derivative of the word calling, vocare. And so you have to feel it in

yourself what you like, do what you like, and guess why you never work a day. So like the law,

but I don't love the law as much as I love business. So anyway, Instagram summit,

Timis, how many hours of night do you sleep? What's your exercise like any alcohol intake?

It's a great question. So last thought I did not sleep well, hence the coffee. I get ice coffee

here to get me revved up, but I'm typically trying to sleep seven to eight hours a night if possible,

when I'm traveling that is completely impossible. And so what I would tell you about your sleep

don't stress about it. Get up, do your best, who cares? Try to get the seven or eight hours,

you will feel better. It will help your immune system, but don't overly stress about it,

particularly have a high stress job exercise. I'm in the gym at least four times a week,

doing a lot of walking at 62. I got to protect the joints a little more. Do a lot of running at 32,

doing a lot of walking at 62 incline walking is probably the best way to lose fat.

But yes, I also lift weights to the extent that I can and alcohol intake. I'm not a T totaler.

I don't want to say that. I'm not a pedantic guy. If you enjoy a glass of wine here or there,

you should do it. Of course, who cares? Just don't tip it over into too big of a harmful habit,

but I'm not a drinker. And so if I have an occasional glass of champagne,

you are there to celebrate somebody's birthday or anniversary. I'll certainly do that,

but I'm actually, you won't see me drinking a lot. And Caddy K often teases me about that.

My podcast, I was on the rest of politics, US. Not European enough for some of these people,

but that's how I am. Okay, Aslin Cat, this is coming out of X, is the X Prince Andrews

arrest going to put pressure on the US DOJ to appear to be doing more about the Epstein files.

I do, I do think that actually. And I have said that on the politics show the rest of politics,

US. I said that the, if I was his defense attorney, I would be getting people like Elaine Maxx,

well, the testify, because it would open up a scene of a worry for the Department of Justice.

There's a cover of going on at the Department of Justice. I think it's pretty obvious.

And so we'll just have to see how it unfolds, but all of these variables out there are going to

put some pressure on the people that are orchestrating this cover up. Okay, YouTube, David Dement,

4647, I would love to hear more about your kids' journeys in the arts. It's something I wanted to do,

but fell into a job I don't love. What does success look like to them? And would you ever encourage

a safety net? So listen, it's tough question for me because I always try to create space for my

children. Don't want to be too pedantic here where I'm taking too much credit for my kids or

anything like that. We've just been fortunate where I have done reasonably well to provide that

safety net that you're describing. And I do my best to help them. I did not have a safety net.

So you don't need a safety net to do what you really love. I guess the big message here

about the journey is find something that you really love and see if you can get the gumption and

the courage to go do that thing because what is happening is the universe starts coming your way

in so many different ways. Okay, so that's my best answer for that one. How do you structure your

calendar to allocate time for kids, marriage and the firm? This is Richard Lorenzo from Instagram.

So good question. Okay, so let me think about it like this. Here's a jar. We've got a jar.

You got rocks and you got sand. Okay, just how you got to think about your time. The rocks are the

most important things. They go in the jar first. Your family, your kids, the employees and the

partners at the firm, their needs. They go in the jar first, right? Those are the rocks.

Then the sand goes in, right? So that could be things like exercise even. Okay, that could be

things like, I don't know, reading books, going on vacation, whatever it might be, but you take that

and you pour it in after. Okay, and if you think about it from that metaphor, it finds its way

through the rocks. If you take the sand, you put the sand in first, then you try to put the rocks

on top of the sand. You don't have enough room for everything. So prioritize, you're not going to

do everything every day, meaning it could be all business for 72 hours and then it could be all

family for 75 hours. Who the hell knows? But don't hold yourself. And again, don't be upset

if it's not going perfectly. I think that's the best way to manage stress is not to be upset when

it's not going perfectly. Who do you believe will do a better job running the country? This is

Barry S. Barry. So you're, I guess you're saying is Democrats are Republicans who would do a better

job running the country. I actually think independence would do a better job of running the country.

I think people who are of reasonable mind and don't want the tribalism and want to focus on the

kinetic things that put us together as opposed to the cultural things maybe that may pull us apart

or even the economic things. And so I'm really hoping that we go into some type of post partisan

mode at some point where people just get fatigued from the nonsense and we get, we get to something

that's a little bit more postpartisan and we get to something that's a little bit more beneficial

for the country than the hard left swinging or the hard right swinging that goes on right now.

Okay, this is a Brighton Gain, 6256. Hey Anthony, from Montreal. I'm a fan of yours. Thank you.

Listening to the rest of the positive open books. I just started my first year studying at law school

and I know you studied at Harvard, any tips and advice. Yes, go to your upper class men's second

and third year law school. Try to find some friends in the upper class. Maybe even have an advisor

or student advisor and get copies of last year's tests. Totally legal to do that. Test change

all the time but get copies of the test so you can see what the professors think are important

about what you're studying. If you're in law school and you've got 1500 pages to read and you start

at page one and you read from page one to page 50 it's going to be a very hard time in law school.

You have to reverse engineer what's important and you've got to work off a summary sometimes

or maybe use AI to get the gist of what people think are important and study that that's my

recommendation and that's what I tried to do and there were a lot less services available

back in that day but you've got a lot of services now. Take advantage of them. Okay, leave a teen

maybe. It's the grand what are your top three favorite historical periods to read about in any book

recommendations. Well, listen, I've always got books around me. Tons of books. I've been reading a lot

about the Revolutionary War. I would say Ackinson's book about that war or phenomenal. I would say

Pauline Meyer on the Declaration of Independence. She's now passed now but she was a professor

Harvard constitutional scholar or Harvard. She anything that she's written. I have read about that

period of time. Other great period of time for me is the World War II and I've read most of

that stuff. H.W. Brands is coming out with a book on George Washington. It's coming out this

spring. I would certainly recommend that to you. He's also written a book called Trader to His Class

about F.D.R., which I also think is a brilliant brilliant book about the war and about getting

through the Great Depression. So those periods of time are important for me because they really

shaped America. And if America is one of the greatest countries in history, if not the greatest

in terms of his economic prowess, it's military footprint and general freedoms. I would say to you

that those periods of time really shaped America. So those are my favorites there. Ah,

keep going. Thank you for that question. By the way, Instagram, sorry, X. This is X-I-A-A-Web 3. I'm

curious to know what your thoughts are on the next big shift in finance. Well, it's crypto and

it's tokenization. That's the next big shift where the people like it or not and apparently there

are like left-leaning economists that write the screens against crypto, Peter Schiff still out there

hating on crypto and I get all that. But the technology is going to transform the financial

services industry. So it is crypto. So let's go there with crypto. I think that's going to be

the big shift. Learn about that. Okay, I think it's very important for you to learn about it.

And you don't have to invest in it, but you have to learn about it. Okay, Jack Carla, what impress

you when you're working with Mark Carney at Goldman early in both of your careers? Well,

actually didn't work with Mark. So I don't want to talk about that because he was actually on the

investment banking side. I was on the asset management side. We're in a training class together.

No mark of very, very long time. I really got to know him through the world economic forum

more closely and with his time at the Bank of England, when I was on both the Romney and the

Trump economic teams in 2012 and 2016. And so what impresses me about him is he's kind. And what

impresses me about him is that he has a vision for Canada. And he's also a tough technocrat.

And so he's not going to back down in a situation if his principles are anchoring him to that position.

And so real leadership requires that. And I would say the best thing I could ever say about

Mark Carney is very trustworthy. And so he says it's going to do something. He's going to do it.

I think that's great for the Canadian people. And he's the right leader at the right time for Canada.

So I wish him continued success. I got the bit, you know, it's probably flattering myself by

saying this. So forgive me, but I had the opportunity to speak to him at my wine party in Davos after

his speech in Davos, which I think will go down historically as one of the best speeches rendered

at the world economic forum. And pay close attention to him. He's a great role model. Okay, let's go to

Wilson, two, three, nine, four, two questions. In today's world, if you had a 14-year-old,

you wanted to give him and her the gift of judgment with all the fake info with AI,

becoming increasingly hard to succeed. What lasting advice would you give them to navigate?

Who are the three people in the financial and economic world when they speak? You listen. Okay,

so let's let's talk about getting advice to kids. So you're going to be careful.

You don't want them to live your life. You want them to live their life. There's Lebanese

poet by the name of Gahil Gibran. It's probably from the turn of the 20th century, early

the 20th century literature. Lebanese Christian writing about children, he said, you could really only be

the bow there, the arrow. So you've got to just be firm in your guidance. But when they leave you,

they're going to a place that you could never get to. It's not your place. It's their place.

And so I think the philosophies and I think that we have to teach people is to follow their

gus, follow their insights, follow their enthusiasm and their love of life. And don't spend a lot of

time judging them. I think that's probably the best advice I can give. On three or four people,

well, for sure, Warren Buffett, Jamie Diamond, I think is probably one of the smartest people.

And they just try to don't agree with everything they says at all times. But when he's talking,

I'm listening. And by the way, if I don't agree with them, I say, okay, he's smarter than me.

Let me go figure out what he's thinking and why. And maybe that will influence my point of view.

Ray Dalio, I think he's somebody that I always look up to.

He's somebody that I think really has a good insight on what's going on. There's so many others,

you know, Stan Druckermelius, more quiet, Ken Langone, a founder of Home Depot,

who's now Langone Medical Center and why you? Those are people I look up to when I talk to

and listen when they're speaking. Okay. YouTube, Scott Kunda,

seven, the W. Can you explain the conflicting view of trade deficits and the overall deficit?

I hear the tariffs have brought the overall deficit down. But the trade deficits are still big.

Can you explain? Okay, I can't explain. And so I want you to think about this from your own life.

I trade deficit would be if you're buying something from China and you get the you send them your

money, they now have your money in their account, you have their goods. Did China buy anything

back from you? Like, let's say they sold you an electronic, did you sell them oil or did you

sell them a car or something like that? And so the difference in the account between what you

bought from China and what you sold to two China is the trade deficit. Okay. And so that's the

best way I can describe in the simplest terms, the trade deficit, the overall deficit is very

different. You have tax revenues that are coming in and a result of which you are then

using that money to spend on the military or resources or social spending or whatever it may be.

And unfortunately those tax revenues are below what you actually want to spend. So you go into

the capital markets and you borrow money from people to spend on top of that. And so as you do that,

you start to accumulate a deficit. So you have an operating deficit, which is our annual deficit

per year. And then you have an overall debt to the American people just now closing on

40 trillion dollars. So it sounds staggering, but it is manageable. And you know, when you talk

about tariffs, I'll just be very clear with you on tariffs. I think this is an important thing to

say. They've marginally helped the deficit. They've brought in some revenues and marginally helped

the deficit, but they've also hurt the industries and they've also hurt our manufacturing here in

the United States. And so Wall Street Journal had a great article on this a few weeks ago talking

about how they have actually hurt, because if you have an airplane as an example, and Boeing is

making that airplane here in the United States, while 60% of the components of the airplane

are coming from overseas. So if you're taxing all of those components, you're really just

rupting the supply chain in the U.S. You're not getting the effect that you would like. There are

better things to do, enterprise zones, tax-free enterprise zones, things like that. I think

would have been more successful, but that's the best explanation I can give you. Lin Flurry,

what is the most influential book that you've ever read? So most people are going to say the Bible

of the Bible that I have read, the King James version is probably the most influential,

but other than that, I would say a really is his book Meditations. I think that if you read a

really is his book Meditations or any of the Ryan Holiday books around stoicism, I think you'd

be very well grounded. You'd also have to read, in my opinion, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Everything's

in there, you know. If you really want me to be philosophical, you read the Iliad and the Odyssey,

a really is in Shakespeare and you've got yourself a liberal arts education and you'll

be very well grounded in a lot of different things. Okay, let's keep going. If you could pass change

one law, what would it be, and why, a postpone of a Instagram? So listen, I'm going to be greedy here,

I'm going to give you two laws. Number one, I would end citizen's unite. Number two, I would end

Jerry Mandarin in the United States, and I would force these people to leave their adversaries in

their districts so that they could compete on ideas as opposed to being a Jerry Mandarin system

where the politicians are picking the voters. I think if you're in a true democracy, the voters

should pick the politicians, not the other way around. So those are the two. As an obvious, the

Civil War is a major gap in my historical, this is from Joel Wendy, on my historical knowledge.

Can you recommend a couple of good books on the subject? You know, I'm going to recommend one book

to you, sir. Okay, and it's a short book, but I have it here, and it's Lincoln at Gettysburg,

and it's written by Gary Willes about 35 years ago, and you read that book. After you're done

reading that book, take a deep breath, and you could read Bruce Catton's books about the Civil War

and things like that, but take the book on Lincoln at Gettysburg. It's a short book. You read that,

and I think it'll be well ahead of the game. You see SFX, how did you miss all the negative

character judgment of Trump when you supported them? Very good question. I didn't, I didn't miss it.

I didn't miss it. I mean, you know, when you're in the political world, you got to take the good

and the bad. I didn't, I didn't miss it. I didn't think it was going to go ballistic or as

crazy as it's gone. People don't remember this, and they want to attack me for it, and they have

the right to do that, and that's fine. But he started out as a Democrat. He always spoke for 20

years that I knew him as a centrist Republican. The fact that he went this sort of alt-right

proto-fascism is something that did surprise me. Now, a lot of people say, oh, no, I saw that,

and I knew he was going to do that and all this other thing, and so they're obviously smarter than

me. But I guess what I took into play was he was a 70-year-old guy going to the presidency,

had some reasonable success in his career, and I thought he was going to try to take the country

in a postpartisan way. I got that wrong, but at least I was smart enough, and honest enough to

admit that and tell people that. So, it can't be anything more than upfront with you about it,

but I did get it wrong. Okay, that's a wrap on today's Q&A episode of Open Book. I'm reading all

your comments. I love hearing from you guys. Keep sending in the questions. Make sure you subscribe,

please, to see the latest episodes, and also to be able to submit the questions. If I miss

something, which of course I did, we'll be back next month with another round of questions. Until then,

let's keep the conversation going. I'll see you next time. And by the way, apparently,

these Q&A sessions are very popular, so thank you for that. Let's keep it going.

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