Even as we started to learn about him, and guess what on earth his appointment meant for the world, Donald Trump’s potty-mouthed communications director Anthony Scaramucci had been fired. It’s widely reported that he was “10 days into the job” – in fact his official start date would have been 15 August.
In going before he arrived, “The Mooch” seemed to burn brighter and faster than a walk-on part in The Thick Of It.
To start with, a few reminders of the man’s style (not least because we got a lot less of it than we were expecting).
In an interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis on Wednesday Scaramucci said he couldn’t stand “the back-stabbing that goes on” in Washington. “Where I grew up, we’re front stabbers,” he added.
Here he is brow-beating a New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza: “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.”
He also told Lizza: “I’m not Steve Bannon [Trump’s chief strategist], I’m not trying to s*ck my own ****. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the f***ing strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.”
Whitehouse chief of staff Reince Priebus, who reportedly delayed Scaramucci’s appointment, was, he added, “a f***ng paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac”, he added for good measure. When Priebus was forced out in short order, we all assumed Mooch was in the ascendant.
Then a four-star general arrived as new chief of staff, and Scaramucci was the one left with a front-facing embedded dagger problem.
Is the judgement that the public has tired of/ see through this sort of PR/ comms? Professionally, I’m always horrifiedly gripped by a comms person getting a high-profile push.
Scaramucci has done many things in his career – Harvard law graduate, hedge-fund manager. But he was a little green on the comms front.
Here’s some of the rules he broke:
If you’d like help managing your comms – or even with a swearing problem – I hope you’ll get in touch.