Anthony Scaramucci's 10 big moments from his 10 days in the White House
In less than two weeks, Mr Scaramucci lost his plus White House gig
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Your support makes all the difference.Anthony Scaramucci has been removed from his position as White House communications director, just 10 days after taking over the post and sparking a wave of changes in the West Wing.
The former hedge fund owner’s appointment to the head communications post — complete with walk-in privileges to the Oval Office — was one of the first major shakeups of the White House in an administration that has been marred by rumours of unrest and infighting.
In a White House that has elevated otherwise behind-the-scenes players into the spotlight, Mr Scaramucci still managed to register in headlines over his brief tenure serving the Oval Office. Here are the highlights from his stint in public service.
July 21: Mr Scaramucci’s hiring was a bit too much for former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who abruptly resigned from his post.
Mr Scaramucci’s first public act as communications chief was to hold a press conference. During that event, Mr Scaramucci said that he had a strong belief in the President, and mostly signalled that he had changed his mind on previous critical statements about Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.
“It was one of the biggest mistakes I made,” Mr Scaramucci said. “I was an unexperienced person in politics, I was supporting another candidate. I should have never said that about him,”
It was one of the biggest mistakes I made,” Scaramucci said. “I was an unexperienced person in politics, I was supporting another candidate. I should have never said that about him.”
July 22: Mr Scaramucci announces that he is deleting his old tweets to avoid a media “distraction”.
July 23: Mr Scaramucci gave a CNN interview to Jake Tapper, and attempted to cast doubt on claims that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election by quoting an anonymous source for the information.
Mr Scaramucci said that somebody (“I won’t tell you who”) had told him that the US wouldn’t know if Russia tried to interfere — because the Russian deception machine is too sophisticated.
But, Mr Tapper cut in, asking him where the information came in. At that point, Mr Scaramucci spilled the beans and said his source was Mr Trump himself — a man whose campaign is reportedly under investigation for potential ties to the Russian government.
“How about it was the president (who said it), Jake?“ Scaramucci said when Mr Tapper pressed. ”I talked to him yesterday. He called me from Air Force One and he basically said to me, 'Hey, you know, this is — maybe they did it. Maybe they didn't do it’.“
July 24: Mr Scaramucci says that the TV cameras will be back on at the daily White House press briefings. Mr Trump’s communications team under Mr Spicer had been frequently criticised for its apparent secrecy, and the administration had broken away from tradition of airing the briefings live in favor of off-camera press conferences.
July 25: Mr Scaramucci signals that he may be moving toward a purge in his communications staff. At this point in his tenure, White House aides were describing him as something akin to family to Mr Trump.
July 26: Mr Scaramucci’s financial disclosure forms appear to show that he could still profit from his ownership stake in his investment firm SkyBridge Capital. The communications chief said then that his leaked financial disclosure forms amounted to a felony offence — even though those documents would have become public eventually anyway.
July 27: A report from the New Yorker details a late night phone call Mr Scaramucci conducted with Ryan Lizza, a reporter at the magazine and a CNN contributor. During the call, Mr Scaramucci attempted to force Mr Lizza to disclose an unnamed source that had notified Mr Lizza of a dinner between Mr Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Sean Hannity, former Fox News executive Bill Shine, and Mr Scaramucci.
During the interview, Mr Scaramucci threatened to fire everybody on his staff, said that Mr Priebus might be asked to resign soon, alleged that Mr Priebus had “c***-blocked” him from getting a White House job for six months, and called Mr Priebus a “f****** schizophrenic, a paranoiac”.
July 28: Mr Scaramucci’s New Yorker interview landed him in some hot water. He told journalists that it’s “better not to comment on the story”, and was forced to drop out of Politicon — the “Comicon” of politics.
July 28: Mr Scaramucci’s feud with Mr Priebus ends up with the former chief of staff being pushed out of his post. Mr Trump immediately tweeted who he planned on replacing his outgoing chief with: John Kelly.
July 31: Mr Scaramucci, just 10 days after it was announced that he’d the reins of the White House communications office, is removed from his post. Technically speaking, actually, he wasn’t supposed to start his post until mid-August.
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