The Mooch ousted but ‘no chaos’

White House tornado lasted 11 days

DONALD Trump’s communications director Anthony Scaramucci has been sensationally dumped from the White House after just 11 days in the job.

Mr Scaramucci, “The Mooch”, had ignited an “all-out civil war” inside the West Wing during his short tumultuous stint, waging a crusade against “leakers” and publicly unleashing on his colleagues. He even claimed the scalp of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus – but yesterday, Mr Priebus’s replacement claimed his.

“Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House communications director. Mr Scaramucci felt it was best to give chief of staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team. We wish him all the best,” the White House said in a statement.

Mr Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, was sworn in as Donald Trump’s new chief of staff and just hours later Mr Scaramucci’s departure was announced. Mr Kelly’s move to dump the controversial communications director was a signal of his authority in the administration, given Mr Scaramucci had been subverting the traditional chain of command by reporting directly to the president.

Mr Trump tweeted that there was “no White House chaos”, even though he presumably knew Mr Scaramucci was about to be pushed out.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders echoed the president’s “no chaos” claim, and was promptly mocked by CNN’s chief political reporter, Jim Acosta.

“That seems akin to denying the sky is blue,” Mr Acosta said. “Obviously the staff is in chaos here at the White House. She said if you want to see chaos, ‘you can come see how my kids play at my house’. My suspicion is her children behave better than some of the officials do inside this White House.”

There was plenty of similar mockery in response to Mr Scaramucci’s departure, but a tinge of sympathy for him as well.