Scaramucci dropped from GOP fundraiser

Comments that Trump is ‘turning into’ a racist

Anthony Scaramucci, the bombastic, brash and short-tenured communications director for President Donald Trump was dumped Thursday from his speaking role at the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s big summer fundraising event, Lobsterfest.

His offense: taking on Trump over the president’s comments about four Democratic congresswomen. In various media appearances,

Scaramucci echoed the assessment of many others, that the presidential commentary shows

Trump “turning into” a racist.

The Palm Beach County Republican Party has been promoting Scaramucci for months as one of two keynote speakers for Lobsterfest, which is Aug. 15 at the Polo Club of Boca Raton.

Michael Barnett, chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said he emailed Scaramucci Thursday morning to tell him not to come. He said Scaramucci replied that he would take the event off his schedule.

“It was a very hard decision to make. I like Anthony Scaramucci a lot. But we just believe that his comments weren’t acceptable,” Barnett said.

On Sunday, Trump wondered on Twitter why four members of Congress, all women of color, don’t “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Barnett said when he read Wednesday afternoon about what Scaramucci had said about Trump he said he concluded the one-time Trump loyalist wouldn’t be a good fit for the Republican Party gathering. He said he emailed the executive board of the party, a total of 17 people, to see if the others agreed. “We made the decision to disinvite him.”

“It kind of infuriated the board when it learned what he said about the president. None of us believe what the president said in his tweet is racist or that he is a racist,” Barnett said. “I don’t believe for a second that he’s a racist.”

Barnett, who is black, has devoted extensive efforts over the years to building up support for Republicans in the HaitianAmerican community. He was instrumental in setting up a gathering of Haitian-American community leaders to meet with Trump in Miami during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“Mike Barnett must like and condone racist comments. Someone with more courage and less political expediency would call it for what it is and ask it to stop,” Scaramucci told Politico, which first reported about the cancellation.

“Palm Beach GOP I am going to miss you guys! I will be eating lobster on the 15th out in the Hamptons without you!” Scaramucci wrote later Thursday on Twitter.

Barnett said he hadn’t planned on talking about the issue until someone alerted the news organi

zation.

“This is the last thing I wanted to talk about,” he said. “I wanted to keep this as quiet as possible.”

But, Barnett said, “I’d rather the president know we support him and don’t believe the comments that were made [by Scaramucci] even if it means having to talk about it in the press.”

Lobsterfest, now in its 18th year, started out as a casual, outdoor event along the Intracoastal Waterway. In recent years, it’s developed into a major summer fundraising event that attracts hundreds of Republicans, with a meal that features lobster.

The 2018 Lobsterfest, less than three weeks before the Republican gubernatorial primary, presaged Ron DeSantis victory over Adam Putnam. Putnam didn’t even show up, citing traffic as his excuse.

There have been occasional controversies. In 2014, the previous county Republican chairwoman invited leaders representatives of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council LGBT rights group to attend as a bridge building attempt, but that generated opposition. In 2015, an anti-Muslim speaker was scheduled to speak, but his appearance was called off after it generated controversy.

In the Trump era, a Trump-style “Make America Great Again Hat” has been added to the crustacean that serves as the event’s logo. And attendees at this year’s event will hear plenty of pro-Trump messaging.

Still on for the event is one of the other two original speakers, Roger Stone, the Fort Lauderdale political provocateur and longtime Trump confidant who is awaiting trial on charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who examined Russian attempts to meddle in the 2016 election.

Added as a speaker in the last two weeks is U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Panhandle Republican who is one of the president’s most outspoken supporters, frequently praising the president on cable TV and on Twitter.

Gaetz is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over a tweet in which he threatened to release embarrassing information about Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, a move critics charge was aimed at intimidating Cohen just before he was about to testify before a congressional committee.

Scaramucci