He may have lasted just 11 days as White House communications director, but Anthony Scaramucci still has a lot to say about U.S. President Donald Trump, those around him, and a new book that paints a picture of a highly dysfunctional administration.
Scaramucci, who made headlines during his brief tenure last summer for his brash style and unscripted, colourful language, for ripping apart former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and for blowing a kiss to reporters at the end of his first press conference, sat down for an interview with CTV’s Your Morning Friday from the New York office of his investment firm.
He says recent book “Fire and Fury” by journalist Michael Wolff should be called “Liar and Furious” and says Wolff is a “complete liar” fed by insiders only out for themselves.
He says the Trump White House is like the 1977 Yankees, who all hated each other but managed to win championships together.
“My attitude is, let’s put the fun in dysfunctionality,” he said. “But you had some guys inside the White House, the guys that helped this guy Wolff write “Liar and Furious.” You know, they were bad guys. They were out for themselves. They didn’t really care about the president or his agenda.”
Scaramucci, who was fired over an expletive-filled talk with a reporter ripping apart others in the administration, dismissed any idea that Trump is mentally unfit for the job, as alleged by Wolff and others.
“He’s not only sane and totally together, he’s a stable genius. We both know that, right?” he said, alluding to Trump’s infamous tweet. “Here’s the thing for your Canadian viewers: when he tweets out that he’s a stable genius, I’m laughing. Donald J. Trump Jr. is laughing, OK. We get the joke.”
Trump uses Twitter as direct messaging to his supporters, says Scaramucci. On the campaign trail, Trump would see his tweets being discussed on mainstream TV news.
“Is that presidential?” Scaramucci said Trump would ask his team. When the answer was no, he would respond: “Well listen, if I’m going to be presidential, then I’m not going to win the presidency.”
Scaramucci also denied that Trump is a racist.
“I’ve seen him in action. He treats everybody the same. Now, you might not like the way he’s treating you but he’s not treating you based on your family of origin or your religious creed, he’s just treating you plain and simple fairly.”
He says the allegations come from those using the politics of division and who “attack the president personally because he’s getting a lot right on policy.”
Trump is an easy target because “stylistically, he says some rough and tumble things that people are not going to like.”
Scaramucci says he remains close to Trump and his family and did not take his firing personally. He doesn’t reject the idea of going back to the White House but says he probably doesn’t fit in to chief of staff John Kelly’s “militarized structure.”
“If I got offered a job I thought I could do a good job at, of course I would consider it. My wife would probably kill me, so I’ve got to be careful about that. But at the end of the day, maybe, but who knows.”
