ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, THE New York businessman who served (very) briefly as Donald Trump’s White House communications chief made an appearance on the Ray D’Arcy Show last night.
The booking was widely publicised by RTÉ in recent days, and was even press-released earlier in the week – a move generally reserved for star bookings on the D’Arcy show and the Late Late.
His patter went down well with the audience, and, judging by the response on social media, he managed to charm certain sections of the TV viewership too.
In case you were planning to catch up – don’t necessarily expect any bombshells from the interview. ‘The Mooch’ – an assured performer - didn’t provide any particularly illuminating new insights into the Trump White House.
He’s been making quite a few media appearances in the US, and has been asked before about the disastrous phone call with a New Yorker reporter that led to him losing his job.
For the record, though, Scaramucci told D’Arcy he thought he was having an off-the-record chat with someone whose family he’d known for years when he told journalist Ryan Lizza, amongst other things, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c**k”, during the infamous call.
Asked whether he regretted the phone-call, he said he only regretted trusting Lizza. “For me it was outside the spirit of human bonds of relationships,” he said.
On the subject of the constantly revolving door of staff at the White House, he said “there’ll be more” firings in the coming months – and accused some now-departed staff of belittling the President behind his back.
On how the President should handle the rumbling Stormy Daniels controversy (the porn star who alleges she had an affair with Trump and was paid hush money is due to give an interview on current affairs show 60 Minutes tonight) he said Trump should resist his usual urge to “be a counter-puncher” and that he should not respond.
He drew regular laughter from the audience – particularly when he corrected D’Arcy’s assertion that he had said he ‘loved’ President Trump “more than ten times” during his first White House press conference last summer.
“It was 8 times,” he replied.
“I’m like an Italian-American kid from like a neighbourhood – we use the word ‘love’ a lot. I was starting to love you Ray but I’m going like this now,” Scaramucci said, turning his head from the presenter.
The financier, as you might imagine, has a good head for figures. He insisted, tongue-in-cheek, that he spent closer to 11 days in his White House post – not ten, as had been claimed elsewhere.
He also noted – as he has in numerous other media appearances – that that amounted to 954,000 seconds, if you cared to count it that way.
One more quick figure… Scaramucci was the third Trump-related figure to appear on an RTÉ weekend chat show in recent months after the US President’s first wife Ivanka back in November and former spokesman Sean Spicer in January.
He promised to return to promote his book, once it’s finished.
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