Comms chief Scaramucci fired

Another day, another exit from the Trump White House.

This time it was Anthony Scaramucci, the flamboyant New York financier who had been appointed communications director just a little more than 10 days ago. His sudden departure announced on Monday set another unflattering record for this White House, the shortest term served by any member of it.

Scaramucci’s ouster was orchestrated by the new chief of staff John Kelly, whose move to the White House followed a series of resignations set off by Scaramucci’s arrival itself, first by press secretary Sean Spicer, and later by chief of staff Reince Priebus. Kelly wanted to start with a “clean slate”.

Scaramucci started, with backdated effect, from July 20 and left on the 11th day — a term shorter than President Donald Trump’s first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s 23 days, deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh’s 69 days, communications director Michael Dubke’s 101 days, Spicer’s 182 days and Priebus’s 189.

“Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House communications director,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also new to her job, said in a statement. Scaramucci was leaving as he “felt it was best to give chief of staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team”.

Trump aides are saying Kelly, a former Marine general who moved from the department of homeland security, is expected to bring order to the White House using his military experience, and will have full authority to determine the reporting structure among officials, a contentious issue.

This will include the first family, or members of it serving in the administration, namely Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, a powerful senior adviser to the president. But that will a tricky area, and will thus be scrutinised closely by observers in the United States and foreign governments and their diplomats here, who have wondered if courting the first family — as have the Chinese most strenuously and others to varying extent — is a sound and necessary investment.

Ivanka tweeted on Monday she was “looking forward to serving alongside” Kelly.