Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c*ck,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the f*cking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)
Then Scaramucci goes into mobster mode:
“What I want to do is I want to f*cking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,” he told me.
Scaramucci, like his boss, apparently can't hold a train of thought:
“O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the f*cking Department of Justice.”
“What?” I interjected.
“Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms.
Scaramucci then ended the call saying “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some sh*t to make this guy crazy.” Which he promptly did.
Then, in another Trump-like move, he called into CNN and denied he was after Priebus:
A few hours later, I appeared on CNN to discuss the overnight drama. As I was talking about Scaramucci, he called into the show himself and referenced our conversation. He changed his story about Priebus. Instead of saying that he was trying to expose Priebus as a leaker, he said that the reason he mentioned Priebus in his deleted tweet was because he wanted to work together with Priebus to discover the leakers.
Lizza ends the article with:
Scaramucci then made a plea to viewers. “Let me tell you something about myself,” he said. “I am a straight shooter.”
The Washington Post reports that Scaramucci and his allies in the White House are in full-mobster mode. And Scaramucci reversed himself again on Priebus:
Language pouring out of the mansion sounded more like a mobster movie than a seat of presidential stability.
.....In a pull-no-punches, impromptu CNN interview that he said was authorized by the president, Anthony Scaramucci went after chief of staff Reince Priebus in graphic terms. “The fish stinks from the head down,” he said. “I can tell you two fish that don’t stink, and that’s me and the president.”
The mobster-talk even filtered down to Ms. Most Unimportant Person in the World, who said on Fox News:
...Conway, also speculated in a Fox News interview that unnamed forces were out to get Scaramucci, saying: “Somebody is trying to get in his way and scare him off.”
“There are leaks and then there are people using the press to shiv each other in the ribs,” she said. (my emphasis)
It sounds like the entire White House team of advisers is filled with vulgarians. Scaramucci needs to tone it down, and not just because his language is disgusting (maybe he forgets that a large part of Trump's base are radical right religious groups who would be appalled by such language) but because it is so beyond the pale that the media is going to fixate on it and repeat it incessantly. And then, as the Post says:
But a rule of thumb in Trump’s inner circle is that it’s never wise to outshine the president. Trump has reacted angrily when certain aides — including Bannon and, briefly, son-in-law Jared Kushner — received outsized media attention.
Scaramucci seems like an extraordinarily poor choice for Communications Director. I wonder whether Jared was involved with his hiring (or too busy meeting with his lawyers over Russia.) The New York Times has the answer:
Mr. Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump met with Mr. Scaramucci for more than 30 minutes on Thursday in a small dining room off the Oval Office, the official said....Mr. Scaramucci is close to Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. He is also respected by Ms. Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president. And Mr. Scaramucci has a direct line to the president, whom he has known for years.
