Trump’s attack dog sent packing
CONTROVERSIAL White House media chief Anthony Scaramucci has exited in ignominy after little more than a week in the job.
His sacking came just hours after US President Donald Trump boasted on Twitter that there was “no chaos” in Washington.
Four days earlier, Mr Scaramucci had launched a foulmouthed attack on senior colleagues – which led to the president deciding that his spokesman had “insufficient self-control” for his crucial role.
Mr Scaramucci was also beset by controversy over his private life during his brief tenure, after his wife Deidre, 38, filed for divorce just before giving birth to their second child.
He did not see their son for several days after the birth, instead reportedly sending his estranged wife a text saying: “Congratulations, I’ll pray for our child.”
A brash multimillionaire New York financier who was widely compared to the president himself, Mr Scaramucci departs hot on the heels of other recent White House casualties – chief-of-staff Reince Priebus and presidential spokesman Sean Spicer.
Sources said Mr Scaramucci was escorted off the White House premises on Monday – just 11 days since he arrived – after losing the support of both Mr Trump and his other powerful allies, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
Mr Scaramucci, 53, had waged a bitter civil war against Mr Priebus and it was claimed he was ousted on the insistence of Mr Priebus’s successor as chief-of-staff, General John Kelly.
The tough retired US Marines general has been brought in to instil discipline in the back-biting White House administration.
Mr Trump admires loyalty and was impressed when Mr Scaramucci forced an embarrassing correction out of CNN over an inaccurate report about the Trump administration’s links with Russia.
But the president reportedly became worried that Mr Scaramucci was getting headlines for the wrong reasons.
In an angry phonecall to a journalist on The New Yorker last Thursday, Mr Scaramucci called Mr Priebus a “f---ing paranoid schizophrenic”.
Turning his anger on to Mr Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, he said: “I’m not Steve Bannon.
“I’m not trying to suck my own c--- … I’m not trying to build my brand off the f---ing strength of the president.”
Mr Scaramucci, who had blamed Mr Priebus for some of the many damaging leaks to the media that have plagued the Trump administration, claimed he wanted to “f---ing kill” colleagues who were behind the leaks.