Politics

Scaramucci’s First Briefing Shows He Is Trump’s Kind Of Guy

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
Font Size:

WASHINGTON — Anthony Scaramucci, the newly-minted White House communications director, claimed he saw President Donald Trump throw a football through a tire and said that Trump’s “really good karma” will enable the passage of health care reform during his first press briefing Friday.

Scaramucci didn’t just speak highly about Trump during the presser. He also touted his education at Harvard Law School and offered a “Wall Street expression” to reporters present. A braggart might just be the perfect messenger for our braggadocious president.

“Anthony Scaramucci is a Trump loyalist who puts loyalty to the president and his agenda above loyalty to the Republican Party,” longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone told The Daily Caller. “He also has a much better understanding of who supported the President and who did not.”

Scaramucci has known Trump for years, but as recently as August 2015 dubbed Trump “another hack politician.” He is also a Wall Street financier, the exact class of citizens the president spent much of the campaign attacking.

The communications director addressed the previous insults Friday, and said Trump “brings it up every 15 seconds.”

“I should have never said that about him, so Mr. President, if you’re watching, I apologize for the 50th time for saying that,” Scaramucci said.

As for Scaramucci’s Wall Street background, the president doesn’t seem to care much anymore about Goldman Sachs alumni, with Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin both holding prominent positions in the administration.

One source who speaks regularly with President Trump joked to TheDC, “I’m just glad Wall Street is finally getting some representation in the White House.”

Scaramucci has no political experience outside of being a big-money donor, but claimed Friday that his hours on TV, including “playing a journalist” on Fox Business count as sufficient communications experience. He is indeed credited for helping mold his image as one wildly more successful than it actually is.

A 2014 Politico profile of Scaramucci quoted a “conservative Wall Street executive,” who said that Scaramucci “has the profile of Sheldon Adelson, but not the bank account. Do people take him seriously? I think they do because of his image and his brand, more so than because of his political giving.”

At Friday’s press briefing, Scaramucci put these brand promoting skills to use hyping up Trump.

Just take a look at his response when pressed about the Republican struggle to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Scaramucci said: “I predicted the president will get a win in health care. It’s my honest prediction just because I have seen him in operation over the last 20 plus years. The president has really good karma, okay, and the world turns back to him. He is a genuinely a wonderful human being.”

He was later asked if the president feels under siege by the investigations into alleged Russian election interference. The president has dubbed the special counsel’s investigation a “witch hunt,” and recently told The New York Times it would be a violation if special counsel Robert Mueller were to look into Trump’s finances.

Scaramucci, however, rejected any possibility that Trump is feeling the pressure.

“He is the most competitive person I have ever met. 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,” Scaramucci said in response to a question about Trump’s mood regarding the investigations.

“I don’t see this guy as a guy that’s ever under siege. This is a very, very competitive person. Obviously there is a lot of incoming that comes into the White House but the president is a winner and what we are going to do is a lot of winning.”

Scaramucci was asked after the briefing how he felt about his performance, and the communications director told CNBC, “I want Sofia Vegara or Julia Roberts to play me in the movie.”