White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci attacked fellow senior aides Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus in a wild interview published Thursday by The New Yorker.
Scaramucci called up New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza after Lizza tweeted out that Scaramucci was having dinner with President Trump with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Bill Shine and Melania Trump.
The White House’s newly minted communications director accused Priebus of leaking this information to Lizza, and said, “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”
“Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci added. He then imitated the chief of staff and said, “‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ”
The interview was published after a day of public tension between Scaramucci and Priebus. Sarah Sanders refused to say at the White House press briefing Thursday whether President Trump has full confidence in Priebus. “The president, as always, enjoys a healthy competition,” the spokeswoman commented.
Scaramucci harped on defeating leaks in the New Yorker interview and said he called the FBI to investigate whether Priebus leaked a financial disclosure form of his to Politico. The Politico reporter later insisted on Twitter that she just asked the Export-Import Bank for it and they gave it to her as it was a publicly available document.
The communications director and former New York financier insisted his mission at the White House was not to increase his own profile.
“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” Scaramucci said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.”
Shortly after the New Yorker story was posted, Scaramucci tweeted, “I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for [Donald Trump’s] agenda.”
Updated at 6:37 PM EST with Scaramucci’s tweet.
