ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI DIDN’T last long in the White House.
At 11 days, the financier’s time as part of the Trump administration is one of the shortest tenures of any communications director in history (he doesn’t quite hold the record though – interestingly, Reagan had a media chief who lasted less than a week).
The official reason given for Scaramucci’s departure was that the president didn’t think his foul-mouthed comments to The New Yorker last week were particularly appropriate. The White House said that he was also leaving in order to give the new Chief of Staff, John Kelly, a clean slate.
CNN reported, however, that Trump had a major issue with his tough-talking spokesman getting more publicity than he did.
In what must have been an embarrassing evening for Scaramucci, the jokes about his short-lived White House career began filling Twitter from the moment the news of his departure broke…
Some political observers returned from holidays yesterday to discover that a major new figure had arrived and departed from the White House during the time they were away.
It’s probably fair to say that Scaramucci – or ‘The Mooch’, as he often referred to himself – is one of the few White House figures who can probably recall what they had for lunch on each day of their employment.
So from 21 July (the Friday before last) to yesterday, 31 July, here’s how the rise and fall of Anthony Scaramucci played out at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…
Scaramucci was unveiled to fill the vacant communications chief role in the White House, having initially attempted to get a job with the administration soon after Trump’s election.
Reince Priebus, Trump’s embattled Chief of Staff, and press secretary Sean Spicer (equally embattled) were vehemently against the millionaire former hedge fund investor’s appointment, according to several reports. Spicer’s departure from his role was announced the same day.
The Italian-American made an instant impression – striking a conciliatory tone as he was introduced by new press secretary Sarah Sanders.
“I’m a team player. I’ve played team sports my whole life — at least as a kid, and I believe that you have to subordinate yourself to the greater good of the team.
And if teammates don’t have disagreements about certain things, then they’re not going to get to the championship. You got to get together and mix it up a little bit from time to time.
“I have no problem mixing it up with these guys,” he said of his new colleagues in the White House.
I love these guys. I respect these guys. Is it perfect every single day? Tell me whose life is perfect every single day.
He went out of his way, during the same podium appearance, to hammer home to reporters that he really liked the President.
He’s also rather fond of arcane-sounding sports references:
I’ve seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire, I’ve seen him at Madison Square Garden with a topcoat on, standing in the key and hitting foul shots and swishing them – he sinks three-foot putts.
The new White House communications chief took to Twitter to announce he was deleting old posts, some of which showed he was at odds with his new boss on issues like gun control and climate change.
Many of those tweets had surfaced the previous day, as his appointment was announced.
Doing the rounds of the Sunday political shows, Scaramucci vowed to root out leakers within the administration – and pledged to get tough on anyone caught giving unauthorised information to the media.
“I will take dramatic action to stop those leaks,” he told Fox News Sunday.
Scaramucci said he would “pare down the staff” if the leaks didn’t stop.
I think it’s not fair to the president, it’s actually not fair to America or the people in the government.
On CNN, he gave this rather bizarre shoutout to his colleague, the newly-promoted press secretary Sarah Sanders:
The only thing I ask Sarah, Sarah if you’re watching, I loved the hair and makeup person that we had on Friday. So I’d like to continue to use the hair and makeup person.
A quiet day for the White House communications chief in terms of his own media appearances.
But this was the day of Trump’s odd, rambling and at times wildly inappropriate speech to the Boy Scouts of America.
Scaramucci told Politico he was prepared to “fire everybody” to stop the White House leaks.
From the site:
Scaramucci confirmed to POLITICO early Tuesday that he planned to start by dismissing assistant press secretary Michael Short at a morning meeting, but that move was apparently delayed.
Short, who initially said Tuesday that he hadn’t yet been informed of any decision, resigned Tuesday afternoon.
This was the day he called The New Yorker to complain to journalist Ryan Lizza about leaks, unleashing a foul-mouthed rant after apparently failing to understand that the entire conversation was on the record.
Lizza had just tweeted about Trump hosting Fox News presenter Sean Hannity for a dinner at the White House.
Scaramucci thought that Priebus was behind the link – and insisted that Lizza reveal his sources.
After the phone-call, he fired off the tweet below.
He had told the journalist he had to leave the call “because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy”.
The tweet was about a Politico report on Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms. The forms were publicly available and legally obtained by the news website.
As a footnote – he confounded the BBC’s Emily Maitlis on the same day by trying to claim that Donald Trump wasn’t a member of the elite because he ate cheeseburgers and pizza.
Her response:
Everyone eats cheeseburgers and pizzas — what are you talking about?’
Jaws hit the floor all over Washington as The New Yorker published Lizza’s article about his phonecall with Scaramucci.
“Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci was quoted as saying, as he ranted about the chief of staff and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist.
“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he continued.
I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.
Scaramucci did not apologise for the tirade, but said he’d try to clean up his language in future. He added that he had “made a mistake in trusting in a reporter”.
At the White House, Sarah Sanders said Scaramucci “used some colourful language – I don’t think he will again”.
Reince Priebus was fired as chief of staff, just one day after the publication of the controversial New Yorker article.
Trump announced that Homeland Security chief John F Kelly would take over.
Though both had denied it, there had long been reports of friction between Scaramucci and Priebus. The financier’s appointment had led to speculation that Priebus’s days were numbered.
The New York Post reported that Scaramucci’s wife Deidre had filed for divorce three weeks previously.
“Family does not need to be drawn into this,” he later tweeted.
Soon we will learn who in the media has class and who doesn’t. No further comments on this.
No media appearances. Just a single tweet about a phonecall with GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel…
Yesterday.
Scaramucci, who boasted in the past about reporting directly to the president, parted company with the White House on the same day new chief of staff John F Kelly was sworn in.
Trump later tweeted that it had been a “great day at the White House”.
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