Putin weaponized the justice system; he went after the media, the universities, and even pulled a comedy show off the air because it made fun of him. On this episode of Open Book, I sit down with Jamison Firestone, a guy who survived mobsters, bugged the Russian police, and watched his friend Sergei Magnitsky get tortured and killed for exposing the truth. We talk Yeltsin, Putin, Navalny, and yes, I ask him what Putin actually has on Trump. His answer might surprise you.

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He built a betting exchange three decades ahead of its time, got prosecuted for it while John Roberts almost took his case, and served time for something states are now making legal one by one. This week on Open Book, Jay Cohen, the man the pro sports leagues crushed, tells me what really happened and why the house always wins in the end.

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They made a vow to survive together, no blame, no panic, just 28 hours of pure will against sharks, jellyfish, and the open ocean. My guest, Michael Tougias, lived inside this story for years to bring it to you, and I promise you'll never look at the water the same way again. This episode is special!

Michael J. Tougias is a New York Times bestselling author and coauthor of over thirty books for adults and middle readers. His books include Fatal Forecast, The Finest Hours, Overboard!, A Storm Too Soon, So Close to Home, The Waters Between Us, Extreme Survival, and The Power of Positive Fishing. He offers slide presentations and an inspiration program titled “Survival Lessons: Decision Making Under Pressure.”

Read his absolutely brilliant new book, which I could not put down: In Deep Water: A True Story of Sharks, Survival, and Courage

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: ⁠https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves

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It's the June Q&A on Open Book, and you came at me with everything this month: aliens, whether there's a reckoning coming when Trump's term ends, and the honest reason it took me so long to break from him. I'm dodging none of it, plus I'm handing you a summer's worth of book recommendations. Keep the questions coming in the comments.

📚Books mentioned in this episode:

1. One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch

2. The Essays of Warren Buffett by Lawrence Cunningham

3. The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant

4. Power Failure by William D. Cohan

5. Money and Power by William Cohen

6. The Last Tycoons by William Cohen

7. Money to Burn by William Cohen

8. Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

9. 1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World by Liaquat Ahamed

10. Criminal Violence Criminal Justice by Charles Silberman

11. Tyrants and Rogues by Robert G. Parkinson

12. A Perfect Coincidence by Jim Rasenberger

13. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

14. 1942: Crux of War by Jonathan Parshall

15. Ike and Winston by Jonathan W.Jordan

16. Robin by Dave Itzkoff

17. Ten Caesars by Barry Strauss

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: ⁠https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves

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Pete Carroll was written off as a flake, a fraud, and a two-time NFL failure, but then he built one of the greatest dynasties in college football history. This week on Open Book, Monte Burke and I get into the Men of Troy: the wins, the wild LA nights, and the scandal that brought it all crashing down.

Monte Burke, the New York Times bestselling author, has been chosen for Barnes and Noble's "Discover Great New Writers" program and has won an Axiom Award for biography. His books have been named to "best of the year" lists by Sports Illustrated, Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, the (London) Times, and Amazon. After a 14-year stint as a reporter, staff writer, and editor at Forbes, he is now a contributing editor at the magazine.

Get a copy of his latest book, Men of Troy: The Epic Afternoons, Wild Nights, and Enduring Legacy of Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans

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Does America face a defining crisis every 80 years? In this episode, I sit down with musician and author Bob Crawford to explore the remarkable life of John Quincy Adams, why history may be rhyming once again, and what one of our most overlooked founding leaders can teach us about democracy, public service, and the challenges facing America today.

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Kathleen Harriman was there at the center of it all, at Churchill's side in the Blitz, in Stalin's Moscow, at Yalta, and somehow history almost forgot her. My guest today, renowned historian Geoffrey Roberts, is fixing that, and I promise you, once you hear her story, you won't.

Geoffrey Roberts is an emeritus professor of history at University College Cork. A leading Soviet history expert, he has written many books, including Stalin’s Library, an award-winning biography of Georgy Zhukov, Stalin’s General, and the acclaimed Stalin’s Wars.

Get a copy of Geoffrey's book Wartime Letters: London and Moscow 1941-1945

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: ⁠https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves

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What if the biggest thing standing between you and your best life isn't failure, it's what other people think of you? Today, I sit down with world-renowned high-performance psychologist Michael Gervais to break down the hidden fear holding back even the greatest athletes, executives, and leaders on the planet.

Dr. Michael Gervais is one of the world’s top high-performance psychologists and a leading expert on the relationship between the mind and human performance. He is the founder and host of the Finding Mastery Podcast, the co-creator of the Performance Science Institute at USC, and his work has been featured by NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, ESPN, NFL Network, Red Bull TV, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Outside Magazine, WIRED, ESPN Magazine, and more.

Get a copy of his transformative book The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying about What People Think of You

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.

Pre-order my next book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, out on the 17th of September in the UK and the 22nd of September in the US: ⁠https://www.scaramucci.net/allthewrongmoves

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Mike Lynch was a working-class kid from East London who built one of Britain's greatest tech companies, and then watched it all collapse in a fraud scandal that stretched across two continents, two courtrooms, and ultimately, cost him his life. Katie Prescott joins me on Open Book to tell the story of a man who was flawed, brilliant, damaged, and damaging — and what his rise and fall says about the way we worship billionaires and the culture we've built around them.

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Before New York was New York, it was New Amsterdam, a Dutch colony built on pluralism, capitalism, and a radical idea that tolerance could be a competitive advantage. Russell Shorto joins me on Open Book to tell the story of how a bloodless standoff in 1664 didn't just transfer a city from one empire to another, it set the genetic code for everything New York, and really America, would become.

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