Scaramucci insinuated that disloyal aides around Trump would soon be on the receiving end of his ire and would be out of a job: “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.” By way of ending the call, Scaramucci said, “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.”
Soon after, this appeared on his Twitter account: “In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.” And, within two hours, the Mooch deleted that tweet and, strangely, denied a report on Axios that he was going after Priebus at all. Several days later, John Kelly, Trump’s newly installed chief of staff, fired Scaramucci. A record for occupational brevity had been set, one that seemed likely to last for decades to come.
Scaramucci, who grew up on Long Island, had a career in finance before his truncated White House career. His politics veered all over the road. He supported Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and, in 2016, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. Before joining the Trump campaign that year, he had called Trump a “hack politician.” Scaramucci now regards the Trump Presidency, he told me, as a “disaster,” but quickly adds that, as a patriot, he wishes it were otherwise. These days, he writes books and hosts the podcast “The Rest Is Politics US,” with Katty Kay, a British journalist. He has called Trump “an orange wrecking ball” and a “sociopathic reality-TV star.” Recently, on the podcast “How to Fail,” he said the President grew “more malevolent” during the Biden years: “He’s, like, ‘Hey, man, I didn’t steal enough in the first term.’ He had four years to figure out how to steal more.”
By way of wishing his distant successor and record-breaker well, Scaramucci told me that after some initial struggles, he found his way. There was life after the White House press room. “I didn’t blame the firing on anyone but me,” he said. “If you play in the N.F.L. and get a concussion, you don’t blame the N.F.L.”
The truth was, he said, “I didn’t like the job. I can’t speak for [Zacharia], but for me the firing came with some level of relief. There is a feeling of humiliation, but also relief.”
Why was there relief? I asked.
“Have you ever worked for Donald Trump?” he said.
Not so far. Has he changed much?
“I think he is similar to the way he was, maybe more unhinged now, and people around him now—there are more lackeys. There are no John Kellys around.”
Does the President seem like a lesser person to you now?
“He could have age-related neurodegeneration, but he is the same person,” Scaramucci said. “Age is slowing him down, but he is an energetic eighty years old.” ♦
