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Anthony Scaramucci’s Uncensored Rant: Foul Words and Threats to Get Priebus Fired Anthony Scaramucci’s Uncensored Rant: Foul Words and Threats to Have Priebus Fired
(35 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — The internal rivalries of the White House spilled out into stark public view on Thursday as President Trump’s new communications director publicly attacked the chief of staff, calling him a “paranoid schizophrenic” leaker and vowing to get him fired. WASHINGTON — When Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, went on television on Thursday morning to compare himself and his adversary, Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, to Cain and Abel, it seemed to encapsulate the fratricidal nature of an administration riven by biblical rivalries. Cain, after all, killed Abel as they vied for God’s favor.
Anthony Scaramucci, who was installed as White House communications director last week over the objections of the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, in the morning called into CNN to say that the two men were at odds and to dare Mr. Priebus to deny being a leaker. By the evening, The New Yorker had posted an interview quoting Mr. Scaramucci using vulgar language to describe Mr. Priebus. As it turned out, that was the cleaned-up version. In a vulgarity-laced telephone call with a New Yorker writer reported on the magazine’s website on Thursday evening, Mr. Scaramucci railed against Mr. Priebus and Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, both of whom opposed his hiring last week. He even vowed to get the chief of staff fired. “Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly,” Mr. Scaramucci said.
“Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly,” Mr. Scaramucci told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in an angry, profanity-laced telephone call on Wednesday night. Mr. Scaramucci suggested that he believed that Mr. Priebus was leaking information to damage him. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” he said. Whether Mr. Scaramucci will turn out to be Cain or Abel, it was clear that his appointment has added another layer of drama and dissent to a White House suffused in it — and revived the perpetual questions about Mr. Priebus’s fate. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary and an ally of Mr. Priebus, resigned in protest when Mr. Scaramucci was hired last week because, he predicted, it would only add more chaos to the team. On that, at least, he seems to have been proved right.
In the same telephone call, Mr. Scaramucci disparaged Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, who also warned against hiring him as communications director. “I’m not Steve Bannon. I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.” But President Trump not only tolerates feuds within his team, he fuels them, playing one courtier off another and leaving them all unsteady. He chooses favorites and casts others aside, but even those decisions seem subject to change at any moody moment. And by several accounts, he personally encouraged Mr. Scaramucci’s jihad against Mr. Priebus, once again subjecting his chief of staff to a ritualistic public lashing even as he considered pushing him out.
Mr. Scaramucci later released a statement but did not apologize. “I sometimes use colorful language,” he said on Twitter. “I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @RealDonaldTrump’s agenda.” Left to explain all this was Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the new White House press secretary. “This is a White House that has lots of different perspectives because the president hires the very best people,” she said gamely, before the New Yorker article posted, asserting that a “healthy competition” benefits Mr. Trump. “With that competition, you usually get the best results. The president likes that kind of competition and encourages it.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the new White House press secretary, said she had nothing to add to the statement. Mr. Priebus and Mr. Bannon had no immediate comment. That kind of competition has exhausted even some of Mr. Trump’s most loyal defenders. But Mr. Trump has openly told people that he has lost faith in Mr. Priebus. He has said he wants “a general” as chief of staff, and has focused on John F. Kelly, the retired four-star Marine now serving as homeland security secretary. Many of his advisers, however, consider that a bad idea.
The phone call underscored the depth of divisions within the West Wing, which have only widened with Mr. Scaramucci’s arrival. Not only did Mr. Priebus and Mr. Bannon oppose his appointment, but Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary in protest. Mr. Scaramucci made clear in his conversation with The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza that he is trying to push Mr. Priebus out. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” he said. Mr. Scaramucci complained that Mr. Priebus had prevented him from getting a job in the White House until now, saying he “blocked Scaramucci for six months.”
Mr. Scaramucci was angry about what he saw as leaks targeting him. Mr. Lizza had posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday night reporting that Mr. Trump and Mr. Scaramucci were having dinner at the White House with Sean Hannity, the Fox News host and a strong supporter of the president, and Bill Shine, a former Fox executive. Mr. Scaramucci called Mr. Lizza unsolicited to demand that he identify his source. In the same telephone call, Mr. Scaramucci disparaged Mr. Bannon. “I’m not Steve Bannon. I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand” on the president’s coattails.
When Mr. Lizza would not, Mr. Scaramucci said, “O.K., I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.” “I’m here to serve the country,” he added.
Mr. Scaramucci was also mad about a story on Politico reporting his financial disclosure form. In a Twitter post on Wednesday night shortly after his conversation with Mr. Lizza, Mr. Scaramucci said the “leak” was “a felony” and that he would be contacting the F.B.I. and Justice Department to seek an investigation. He then included Mr. Priebus’s Twitter handle, which several officials in the White House interpreted as meaning that he suspected the chief of staff. Mr. Priebus finds himself isolated inside the White House. He has lost the support of Mr. Trump’s family, and other senior aides have long bristled at his demeanor or suspected he was trying to undermine them. Allies like Mr. Spicer are gone or leaving. And some complain that Mr. Priebus used the White House communications office as his own personal fiefdom.
On Thursday morning, he telephoned into CNN and agreed that he was at loggerheads with Mr. Priebus, comparing them to Cain and Abel, the biblical sons of Adam and Eve whose conflict led to Cain murdering Abel. He challenged Mr. Priebus to deny being a leaker. Lately Mr. Trump has resumed subjecting him to frequent indignities in front of White House staff. According to one aide, the president, who had ceased for a time, has regularly mentioned how Mr. Priebus suggested that Mr. Trump consider dropping out of the presidential race last October after a tape of him boasting about grabbing women by the genitals emerged. “Do you remember when Reince did that?” the president has asked associates. The issue has always been a sore spot between the two men.
“We have had odds. We have had differences,” Mr. Scaramucci said. “When I said we were brothers from the podium, that’s because we’re rough on each other. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel. Other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I don’t know if this is reparable or not. That will be up to the president.” Mr. Priebus endured the hazing in silence, as he generally has, and the White House did nothing to defend him against Mr. Scaramucci’s tirade. Mr. Scaramucci released a statement after the New Yorker piece was published that fell well short of an apology.
But the leak he was complaining about was no leak. Lorraine Woellert, Politico’s reporter on the story, explained that she simply requested the financial disclosure form through normal channels and was provided it by a government agency as required by federal law. Mr. Scaramucci deleted his Twitter message but posted a new one referring to a story by the news outlet Axios suggesting that he wanted Mr. Priebus investigated. “I sometimes use colorful language,” he said on Twitter. “I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @RealDonaldTrump’s agenda.”
As the hosts and guests of CNN’s “New Day” discussed the matter on Thursday morning, Mr. Scaramucci called in to address the question of Mr. Priebus. Ms. Sanders said mildly that Mr. Scaramucci was simply expressing strong feelings, and that his statement made clear that “he’s a passionate guy and sometimes he lets that passion get the better of him.” She added, “I don’t think he’ll do it again.”
“He’s the chief of staff,” he said. “He’s responsible for understanding and uncovering and helping me do that inside the White House, which is why I put that tweet out last night.” The fact that journalists interpreted it as an accusation against Mr. Priebus suggested that he might be a leaker because the journalists know who gives them information, Mr. Scaramucci said. But later in the evening, Mr. Scaramucci shifted blame. “I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter,” he wrote on Twitter. “It won’t happen again.” Mr. Lizza wrote that Mr. Scaramucci never asked to be off the record.
“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,” he said. “So if Reince wants to explain that he’s not a leaker, let him do that. Let me tell you something about myself. I am a straight shooter and I’ll go right to the heart of the matter.” Mr. Priebus’s plight was good news for another member of the Trump team. For the first time in a week, it was not Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s turn to be the presidential punching bag.
The disclosure form, filed with the Export-Import Bank, where Mr. Scaramucci worked briefly before joining the White House, showed that he has assets worth as much as $85 million. He made $5 million in salary and another $4.9 million from his ownership stake in his investment firm SkyBridge Capital in the first six months of this year, according to the filing. During a visit to El Salvador, Mr. Sessions acknowledged to the Associated Press that “it hasn’t been my best week” in his “relationship with the president.” Speaking to Fox News, he added, “It’s kind of hurtful, but the president of the United States is a strong leader. He is determined to move this country in the direction that he believes it needs to go to make it great again.”
Under federal law, disclosure forms are publicly available and agencies that receive them have 30 days to open them to the public. Mr. Scaramucci’s report says it was filed on June 23, which meant that it had to be available for release by the bank by July 23, this past Sunday. So many figures inside Mr. Trump’s orbit have been declared on their way out that it takes a scorecard to keep track. Aside from Mr. Priebus and Mr. Sessions, many wonder about the future of Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser whose Afghanistan war plan was rejected by the president last week. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson disappeared for a few days off, stoking speculation that he may leave. (“Rexit,” it was dubbed on Twitter.) And the president, who has already fired one F.B.I. director, this week called for the acting head of the bureau to be dismissed too.
The clash between Mr. Scaramucci and Mr. Priebus offers a case study in how the Trump White House operates, a conflict divorced from facts, untethered from the basics of how government works, enabled by the lack of any organizational structure and driven by ambition, fear, animosity and envy.
The genesis was a dinner hosted Wednesday night by Mr. Trump at the White House that included Mr. Scaramucci, Sean Hannity and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Fox News hosts, and Bill Shine, a former Fox executive.
Ms. Guilfoyle told the president that Mr. Priebus was a problem and a leaker, someone who was not serving his agenda, according to a person briefed on the conversation.
Mr. Scaramucci grew angry afterward that Mr. Lizza had learned that the dinner was taking place and that Politico had obtained his government financial disclosure form. At that point, he called Mr. Lizza, demanding to know his source, whom the reporter refused to divulge.
“O.K., I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks,” Mr. Scaramucci replied.
After hanging up, Mr. Scaramucci posted a message on Twitter asserting that the “leak” of his disclosure form was a “felony” and that he would seek an F.B.I. investigation. He included Mr. Priebus’s Twitter handle, a move that was interpreted as blaming the chief of staff.
But it was no leak. The disclosure form is supposed to be made public under federal law and all Politico did was ask for it under normal procedures. Mr. Scaramucci deleted the tweet. But on Thursday morning, he called into CNN with Mr. Trump’s encouragement, and threw down the gauntlet with Mr. Priebus on live television.
“We have had odds. We have had differences,” Mr. Scaramucci said on CNN. “When I said we were brothers from the podium, that’s because we’re rough on each other. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel. Other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I don’t know if this is reparable or not. That will be up to the president.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters said Mr. Scaramucci was causing more harm than good.
“I would say right now that he’s being more pugnacious than effective,” Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, told the radio host Laura Ingraham. “I think he ought to slow down a little bit and learn what he’s doing.”