Just 10 days into his sensational run as White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci has reportedly lost his job. According to the New York Times, booting the Mooch was a first order of business for President Trump’s new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who was sworn into the job just this morning.
Scaramucci’s short-lived White House tenure was a long time coming. In January, anticipating a position in the new administration and entertaining a charmingly naïve concern for the appearance of interest conflicts, Scaramucci sold his hedge fund business, SkyBridge Capital, to Chinese investors. But the promised job offer was not forthcoming, leaving Scaramucci in an embarrassing spot—a wealthy hedge fund manager turned high-powered political operative who was also conspicuously unemployed.
A few months of schmoozing later, Scaramucci landed the communications director job on July 21. His official start date was August 15, but the madness ensued far sooner. In chronological order, we’ve collected a few highlights below.
Decimating the White House senior staff
The Mooch’s first casualty: Hapless White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who evidently felt that Scaramucci’s appointment was, at long last, too great a disgrace to bear. Spicer stepped down from the press secretary job the same day Scaramucci arrived.
Next up: White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, with whom Scaramucci enjoyed a bitter personal feud. (Priebus had reportedly accused Scaramucci of sketchy financial dealings; Scaramucci fired back by calling him “Rancid Penis” behind his back and accusing Priebus of leaking to the press.) The two men lasted just one week in the same White House before Priebus found himself on the outs, abandoned Sopranos-style in a black Chevy Suburban. Priebus’s replacement, of course, was Kelly, the man who reportedly called for Scaramucci’s firing.
The unhinged CNN interview
Scaramucci, you recall, liked to accuse Priebus of leaking to journalists. Hence, his insistence that it was Priebus who’d leaked financial disclosure statements to Politico suggesting Scaramucci might still be profiting from his stake in SkyBridge. Never mind that Politico’s reporter, Lorraine Woellert, said she’d merely requested documents that were publicly available: It didn’t stop the Mooch from appearing on Chris Cuomo’s CNN show New Day with a half-hour worth of complaints and half-veiled legal threats about the “felony” committed against him. Read our story about the interview here.
In case there’s any ambiguity in his tweet I can confirm that Scaramucci wants the FBI to investigate Reince for leaking.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 27, 2017
The New Yorker call
For one short Wednesday, CNN had a monopoly on Anthony Scaramucci’s crazy. On Thursday, New Yorker political reporter Ryan Lizza published an account of a wild phone call he’d received from Scaramucci the night before. The conversation began as Scaramucci attempted to shake down Lizza for his confidential sources; escalated as he threatened to fire the entire White House communications staff; intensified as he accused Priebus of “cock-blocking” him from the comms director job; and climaxed with the instantly infamous, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock.” Read the whole thing, if you somehow haven’t already.
When his wife divorced him
Not even a full 24 hours after the New Yorker story ran, Page Six revealed that Scarramucci’s wife, Deidre Ball, had filed for divorce. “She liked the nice Wall Street life and their home on Long Island, not the insane world of D.C.,” Page Six’s sources claimed. “She is tired of his naked ambition, which is so enormous that it left her at her wits’ end.” At least she has that sense of comic timing to sustain her.
When his own law school listed him as deceased
Harvard Law sent out an updated alumni directory last week. An stray asterisk appeared next to the name of Anthony Scaramucci, ’89, indicating he’d been reported dead. No, really.
Farewell, Mooch. God, we’ll miss you.
