Scaramucci: Bannon Is A ‘Cocksucker,’ Preibus Is A ‘Fucking Paranoid Schizophrenic’

Is it an assistant to the President? 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.

That’s what White House communications director – and man who is very quickly discovering why no one wanted that job – Anthony Scaramucci told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in an angry phone call on Wednesday night.

Scaramucci was furious about the following tweet and he wanted to know who leaked the information to Lizza:

Senior White House official tells me that Melania was also at the dinner tonight with Trump, Hannity, Shine, and Scaramucci.

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 27, 2017

Of course Lizza wasn’t going to reveal his source (that’s how it works in America, something the Trump administration is having a very – very – hard time coming to terms with).

As you’re probably aware by now, Scaramucci blamed Reince Priebus. Here’s a quick recap of the background story, via Lizza:

In Scaramucci’s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him. While they have publicly maintained that there is no bad blood between them, Scaramucci and Priebus have been feuding for months. After the election, Trump asked Scaramucci to join his Administration, and Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of taking on a senior role. But Priebus didn’t want him in the White House, and successfully blocked him for being appointed to a job until last week, when Trump offered him the communications job over Priebus’s vehement objections. In response to Scaramucci’s appointment, Sean Spicer, an ally of Priebus’s, resigned his position as press secretary. And in an additional slight to Priebus, the White House’s official announcement of Scaramucci’s hiring noted that he would report directly to the President, rather than to the chief of staff.

Well, as the phone call went on, Scaramucci got increasingly angry with Lizza, and here’s what he said:

They’ll all be fired by me. I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus–if you want to leak something–he’ll be asked to resign very shortly. Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac. ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ”

Fast forward to Thursday, and all of this escalated.

As WSJ recounts, it is now apparent that the differences between Scaramucci and Priebus are not reconcilable (which seems abundantly clear from the comments excerpted above). To wit:

“We have had differences. When I said we were brothers from the podium, that’s because we’re rough on each other,” he said, referring to a comment he made last week. “Some brothers are like Cain and Abel. Other brothers can fight with each other and get along.” He continued: “I don’t know if this is reparable or not, that will be up to the president.”

Mr. Scaramucci indicated to The Wall Street Journal that he has spoken to Mr. Trump about his differences with Mr. Priebus. Asked in a text message Thursday morning when he would make his case to the president, Mr. Scaramucci responded: “I spoke to him twice today.”

Ok, now back to the Wednesday phone call with Lizza, who notes what you probably already know: namely that Scaramucci is particularly distraught about the following, out Wednesday evening from Politico:

Anthony Scaramucci finally has his White House job, but he still stands to profit from an ownership stake in his investment firm SkyBridge Capital.

The incoming White House communications director earned $4.9 million from his ownership stake in SkyBridge in addition to more than $5 million in salary between Jan. 1, 2016, and the end of June, when he joined the Export-Import Bank, according to a financial disclosure filed with the Office of Government Ethics.

The disclosure form, which is publicly available upon request, hasn’t been previously reported.

The disclosure highlights the extensive wealth Scaramucci has accumulated in his career – much like many of Trump’s other top advisers and Cabinet secretaries – and also the challenge he faces in extracting himself from the potential conflicts his investments could pose.

Scaramucci’s financial filing values SkyBridge Capital at more than $50 million and states that he owns nearly 44 percent of the firm. When the sale of the company is completed, expected to be in the third quarter of this year, he will receive “the agreed-upon purchase price for his share of the sale proceeds,” according to the filing.

Apparently, Scaramucci didn’t know – or at least didn’t understand – the bit about the form being “publicly available upon request” when he called Lizza, because he blamed Priebus for it, saying, “I’ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice.”

At that point, Lizza was incredulous, asking, “Are you serious?”

And it only gets funnier. Here’s Lizza again:

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.”

He reiterated that Priebus would resign soon, and he noted that he told Trump that he expected Priebus to launch a campaign against him. “He didn’t get the hint that I was reporting directly to the President,” he said. “And I said to the President here are the four or five things that he will do to me.” His list of allegations included leaking the Hannity dinner and the details from his financial-disclosure form.

You can (and definitely should) read the entire story from Lizza here, but I think it’s safe to say that all of the above underscores the following two points:

1. this White House is completely off the rails and far from a “well oiled machine” (as Trump once called it), this administration is actually a complete fucking train wreck
2. no one in this administration seems to understand that the press simply isn’t going to be intimidated and they aren’t going away

Oh, and we also know that “The Mooch” doesn’t “suck his own cock.”

So that’s good. I guess…

******