Scaramucci takes on Priebus in latest White House showdown
Communication head vows — colorfully — to put an end to leaks
It’s on: Scaramucci vs. Priebus.
The near-constant infighting within President Trump’s staff burst back into public view Thursday after newly hired White House communication director Anthony Scaramucci — less than a week on the job — sent a contentious tweet and gave an aggressive television interview that appeared to finger White House chief of staff Reince Priebus as a leaker.
Describing what he called a war on news leaks from senior White House officials, Scaramucci cited Priebus in connection with leaks of news stories damaging the president and his aides — including the newly hired communication director.
In a tweet he later deleted, Scaramucci tagged Priebus in a post condemning the publication of the financial disclosure form that Scaramucci — who spent almost three decades on Wall Street — recently filed in connection with his previous government job at the Export-Import Bank.
Later, asked about the tweet on television, Scaramucci denied he was directly accusing Priebus of leaking, but he did put the onus on the chief of staff to explain more about his involvement. “When I put out a tweet and I put Reince’s name in the tweet, they’re all making the assumption that it’s him because journalists know who the leakers are. So if Reince wants to explain that he’s not a leaker, let him do that.”
Trump’s new hire did acknowledge there was tension in the West Wing, saying he wasn’t sure if the spat over leaks “is reparable or not, that will be up to the president.”
He compared his relationship with Priebus to Cain and Abel, though he did not specify which of them in his biblical metaphor represented the brother who killed the other.
The feud escalated with the Thursday posting of a New Yorker story in which Scaramucci attacked Priebus in harsh and even vile terms.
In a phone call Wednesday night to chief Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza, Scaramucci employed a string of expletives to rant against Priebus, calling him a “paranoid schizophrenic.” He insulted Trump strategist Steve Bannon and threatened to fire the entire White House communication team. Lizza said Scaramucci never asked for the conversation to be off the record.
Scaramucci opened the call demanding Lizza give him the source of a tweet he sent outlin- ing the president’s dinner plans with pundit Sean Hannity and Fox News executive Bill Shine.
Lizza said that as Scaramucci got “more and more worked up,” he “eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source.”
Scaramucci later tweeted, “I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump’s agenda.”
Priebus did not comment publicly Thursday, and White House officials downplayed the episode as the fruit of creative tension among strong-minded staff members — something the president encourages.
The new staff tension arising from the president’s decision last week to hire Scaramucci reflects a longtime rivalry in Trump world: the one between veterans who signed up early as Trump’s presidential campaign aides, and Republican National Committee officials brought in for the fall race against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Staff infighting marked Trump’s presidential campaign and has followed him into the White House.
Since his inauguration more than six months ago, there have been several battles: Bannon vs. Priebus and Bannon vs. Jared Kushner, the White House senior adviser and Trump son-in-law.
In each case, White House officials called news coverage overblown.