VA- MOOCH! Axed af ter just 10 days
10 tumultuous days and he’s axed
Mooch, we hardly knew ya. White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, who in 10 short days since his appointment was responsible for the departures of Press Secretary Sean Spicer (right) and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, was himself unceremoniously dumped yesterday.
After serving just 10 days as a one-man White House wrecking crew, creating chaos with his filthy mouth and behind-the-scenes machinations, Anthony Scaramucci got a taste of his own medicine on Monday.
The caustic Oval Office communications director was ousted by new Chief of Staff John Kelly on the same day the retired Marine general was sworn in to his new post.
The decision to sack Scaramucci was made by President Trump, but Kelly personally delivered the news to the “The Mooch” at 9:30 a.m. — and he was ordered to leave the White House shortly thereafter, officials said.
Scaramucci “does not have a role at this time in the Trump administration,” White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders later told reporters, adding that the Wall Street financier wouldn’t even be returning to his previous job at the Export-Import Bank.
Kelly did not like the fact that Scaramucci boasted about reporting directly to Trump, and wanted to make it clear that he was in charge, sources told The New York Times.
“General Kelly has the full authority to operate within the White House, and all staff will report to him,” Huckabee Sanders said after Scaramucci’s ouster.
Kelly, the former Homeland Security secretary, reportedly also was aghast that Scaramucci kept his White House job after unloading on other Trump aides in an obscene rant to a reporter for The New Yorker magazine.
Huckabee Sanders said the vulgar comments Scaramucci made about former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Trump adviser Steve Bannon also upset Trump.
“The president firmly felt that Anthony’s comments were inappropriate for a person in that position, and he didn’t want to burden General Kelly also with that line of succession,” she said.
She issued a statement that concluded with wishing Scaramucci “all the best.”
The shake-up came just hours after the president declared there was “no chaos” in the White House.
As news of the firing spread, Kelly appeared in the East Room smiling and taking pictures with guests who were gathering for a Medal of Honor presentation in the afternoon.
“A great day at the White House!” the president tweeted at 6:20 p.m., after the Medal of Honor ceremony.
As recently as Sunday night, Scaramucci, told MSNBC that he believed his New Yorker interview was going to blow over.
In the rant, the multimillionaire, told the magazine’s Ryan Lizza that Priebus “is a f--king paranoid schizophrenic” and that “I’m not [White House strategist] Steve Bannon. I’m not trying to suck my own c- -k.”
He also said that he would “f--king kill all the leakers” in the White House.
Details of the cringe-worthy interview surfaced Thursday. But Scaramucci ultimately won his private battle with Priebus. By Friday, the chief of staff was packing his bags.
Priebus’ hasty exit was cinematic, with him being dumped alone in a car on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland as news of his firing spread and the rest of the presidential motorcade departed without him.
Huckabee Sanders defended Scaramucci’s profane tirade at one point last week, saying, “Sometimes he’s a passionate guy; sometimes he might let that passion get the better of him. I think maybe that happened.”
Heaping on to the embarrassment that seemed to follow Scaramucci wherever he went, The Post reported on Friday that his wife had filed for divorce — less than a week after giving birth to their second child.
Scaramucci couldn’t seem to get a break even after being fired.
On Monday, it was reported that an asterisk had been placed next to his name in the Harvard Law School alumni directory — a designation meaning the 1989 graduate had been reported dead since the compilation was published in 2011.
“We offer our sincere apologies to Mr. Scaramucci. The error will be corrected in subsequent editions,’’ a Harvard Law spokeswoman told The Washington Post.
Scaramucci was the third White House communications director to leave the post, which had been vacant since late May, when Mike Dubke departed after about three months. Sean Spicer, whom Scaramucci bounced as White House press secretary, also held the job briefly.
Dems were quick to react to Scaramucci’s departure with glee.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, took to Twitter to offer a mocking farewell.
“Thank you Anthony @Scara- mucci for your service. I speak for a grateful nation when I say ‘has it really only been 11 days?!?’” he tweeted.
Alain Sanders, a professor of political science at St. Peter’s University in Jersey City, said Kelly is trying to restore a sense of order to an undisciplined West Wing.
“It’s at once surprising and unsurprising. Surprising that a communications director would serve for only 10 days, but unsurprising, because Mr. Scaramucci was quite unconventional, and there was that strange performance last week,” Sanders said.
“It’s also not surprising that cooler heads would prevail at the White House, and may mark the beginning of a greater sense of purpose by the general.”
Trump chose to highlight the rising stock market and positive jobs outlook Monday rather than talk about the tumult that has dogged his administration.
In addition to the firing of Priebus and Scaramucci, there have been Trump’s public attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the ongoing Russia probes and a failure to overhaul health care.
“Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos!” the commander in chief crowed on Twitter.
In fact, economic growth averaged 2 percent in the first half of this year, a pace Trump had railed against as a candidate and promised to lift to 3 percent.