The Sean Spicer show comes to an end
Scaramucci new director of communications
Fractures in the White House over President Donald Trump's legal and communications strategies erupted in abrupt and dramatic fashion on Friday, when Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned after Trump hired financier Anthony Scaramucci as his communications director.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Spicer's principal deputy, would assume his job, Scaramucci said. In his first appearance at the White House briefing room podium, he deftly wished Spicer well — “I hope he goes on to make a tremendous amount of money” — and brushed away his own old criticisms of the president.
“He brings it up every 15 seconds,” Scaramucci said of a 2015 television appearance in which he called Trump “a hack.”
Scaramucci said he's repeatedly apologized for “one of the biggest mistakes I made because I was an inexperienced person in politics. He's never forgotten it. You've never forgotten it.”
A day earlier, Trump appointed attorney John Dowd to lead the legal team representing him in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, replacing Marc Kasowitz. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the legal team, confirmed he resigned, and a person familiar with his decision said he had grown frustrated with the White House's defence strategy.
The inconsistency of that strategy was demonstrated on Friday. Dowd said in an interview that Trump did not plan to attack the credibility of lawyers working on Mueller's team, even as Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said in a Fox interview that Mueller's investigation was “all a hoax” and criticized campaign contributions to Democrats by some of Mueller's deputies.
Scaramucci, 53, is expected to appear frequently on television speaking on Trump's behalf, a role he's voluntarily filled for months. He was a campaign fundraiser for Trump and regular adviser during the presidential transition who's been considered for multiple jobs in the administration, most recently ambassador to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
He told reporters that his job would be to improve the perception of Trump's performance as president.
“There has been an arbitrage spread between how well we are doing and how well some of you guys think we are doing and we are going to work hard to close that spread,” Scaramucci said.
Spicer's departure from the administration was sudden. But Spicer struggled to adjust to the demands of the job from the outset.
During his first official press event a day after Trump's inauguration ceremony, Spicer berated reporters about the crowd size at the inauguration, using false information that was quickly debunked.
He has been regularly lampooned on NBC's Saturday Night Live by actress Melissa McCarthy, who portrayed Spicer as a belligerent and unprepared spokesman often struggling with his words.