Trump must set house in order and then drain swamp

Anthony Scaramucci was so busy last week being the White House Director of Communications that he didn’t even have time to visit his newborn child from his estranged wife. “Congratulations. I’ll pray for our child,” he texted his wife Deidre as she recovered in hospital while he was busy hurling insults at the then White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. Now that ‘The Mooch’ has himself been sacked from his high-profile role, he will have plenty of time to check on James, his second son from his second wife. Scaramucci was ambitious. Everyone in the president’s team is. No problem with that. But what roiled his relationship with his second wife was his naked ambition. So, instead of setting the agenda for the president’s communications team, he’ll now cool his heels at home. Who knows, he might even host a show on Fox News, the Republican favourite for fake news.

But this is not about the former Wall Street honcho, it is about a presidency that is imploding and cannibalising itself. It has changed so frequently over the last six months witr all the chopping and churning that it’s hard to know who’s in charge. For the moment at least, the White House is headed by the new Chief of Staff, John Kelly, a former general, who appears to have the president’s ear. How long the arrangement will last, no one will wager. President Trump has his own mode of communication — via Twitter — where he contradicts his team at the crack of dawn. The communcations team then has the task of clearing things up during the daily press conference. Alternate reality is the new reality during these tense interactions where facts are often ignored. Trump inhabits his own universe where he first talks and then thinks. Scaramucci simply followed his lead and went too far with a string of expletives to be given the marching orders. Reports said he was escorted by security officials out of the presidential residence. What next for the president who promised to drain the swamp in Washington DC during his campaign last year? That will have to wait as he is yet to set his house in order.