History says bullying superpowers invite coalitions against them. Scaramucci invokes Harvard professor Stephen Walt's thesis on unnatural alliances: China and Russia set aside 300 years of Siberian border disputes because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. America used to avoid this trap by being powerful AND benevolent.
Where this was said
At 12:17 · chapter starts 6:58
Katty Kay lays out the facts: Folarin Balogun was red-carded against Bosnia-Herzegovina and faced a ban from the round-of-16 clash with Belgium, but the White House — including Trump himself — called Infantino, and by Sunday the suspension was overturned [1] — Katty Kay "FIFA reversed an on-field red card after Trump personally called Gianni Infantino. The bigger story isn't whether Balogun deserved the card…" 06:58 . Kay acknowledges there was legitimate debate about the call, and she notes that Gary Neville's Ferdinand agreed the card may have been harsh. But the principle is what troubles her: if a US president can phone a governing body and change a result, so can any king, prime minister, or autocrat. Scaramucci role-plays Trump's inner monologue — 'Kamala Harris wouldn't have done this, ergo it proves my genius' — before landing on a grimmer point: the bully in the schoolyard doesn't win long-term. He invokes Biff from Back to the Future as a surprisingly apt character study of the current presidency, and condemns the ring of sycophants who refuse to tell Trump this makes America look weak, not strong. UEFA issued a 'red line' warning, but Kay punctures it immediately: red line meaning what, exactly? In 2026, there is no sheriff to call.
FIFA reversed an on-field red card after Trump personally called Gianni Infantino. The bigger story isn't whether Balogun deserved the card — it's that a sitting US president can now phone a sports governing body and change the outcome. That's a precedent every country will remember.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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