Scaramucci was too-Trump for Donald Trump

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This was published 6 years ago

Scaramucci was too-Trump for Donald Trump

By Nick O'Malley
Updated

Even by the standards of the Trump administration, an organisation in which time warps and telescopes like that of a fever dream, the Scaramucci era was brief to the point of abrupt.

Anthony Scaramucci, the New York financier with no political or communications experience was named White House Communications Director on July 21.

He unofficially assumed his duties on July 25, though his official start date was not to be until August 15. He was sacked on July 31, a fortnight before he began.

Like Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman who welcomed "The Mooch" by resigning, he marked his first day on the job by so thoroughly debasing himself before the White House press corps that he could never hope to gain even passing respect.

Anthony Scaramucci, from the so-smooth-he's-slippery school of PR.

Anthony Scaramucci, from the so-smooth-he's-slippery school of PR.Credit: AP

Where Spicer marked the occasion by transparently lying about the size of Trump's inauguration crowds, the Mooch turned up and declared his love for the President in positively North Korean terms."I love the President and I'm very, very loyal to the President, and I love the mission that the President has," he told them.

"He is the most competitive person I have ever met," he went on. "I have seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire. I have seen him at Madison Square Garden with a topcoat on, he's standing in the key, and he's hitting foul shots and swishing the ball on them. He sinks three-foot putts." (Someone in the White House was apparently unmoved by even this sycophancy. The official transcript of that briefing was altered to have Trump sinking 30-foot putts.)

Taking a leaf out of Trump's own playbook, Scaramucci decided to distract from this catastrophe by creating another. He called the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza and unleashed a tirade so obscene and paranoid, so revealing of ignorance about the standards and norms of Americans governance, that it even stood out in the Trump White House.

Despite the Mooch's obvious inadequacies for the role, there were those who thought he might survive, even some who applauded his appointment as just the sort of CEO-style cunning that only a man as brilliant as Trump could conceive of.

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Chief instigator: Donald Trump.

Chief instigator: Donald Trump.Credit: AP

"For someone who's never worked in communications, @Scaramucci is a very impressive communicator. Great hire, @realDonaldTrump," tweeted the ever-loyal Piers Morgan.

To be fair there was as school of thought that the Mooch's similarities to Trump might save him. He is - was - rich and brash, vulgar and confident. He wears, as Matt Taibi in Rolling Stone put it last week, the sort of suit the owner of a Lamborghini dealership might favour. He even owns a fancy mid-town Manhattan steakhouse.

Retired Marine Corps General John F. Kelly, smiles at his change of command ceremony in January 2016.

Retired Marine Corps General John F. Kelly, smiles at his change of command ceremony in January 2016.Credit: AP

Scaramucci's problem was that in the Trump administration the only person who can get away with behaving like Trump is Trump. If anyone else had been as erratic, noisy and destructive to the machine as the President, he would have been sacked long ago. As it is, as many Americans today want to see Trump impeached as still support his presidency.

In truth Scaramucci was gone the moment Trump sacked his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Trump had hired Scaramucci to stop leaks from the White House and he installed Scaramucci with a direct line of report to the Oval Office to that end. No chief of staff should or could tolerate such a circumvention of his authority, so when Trump replaced Priebus with the retired four-star Marine General John Kelly to clean up the mess, Scaramucci had no chance.

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The Mooch has had a tough month. He has won and lost one of the most high profile jobs on earth. He has had a baby. He would have more time to spend with his family, but his wife left him.

But pity John Kelly too. He has to try to end the chaos in the White House and he can't sack the chief instigator.

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