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United States Politics

Trump Removes Anthony Scaramucci From Communications Director Role (nytimes.com) 463

Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, and Glenn Thrush reporting for The New York Times: President Trump has decided to remove Anthony Scaramucci from his position as communications director (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source), three people close to the decision said Monday, relieving him just days after Mr. Scaramucci unloaded a crude verbal tirade against other senior members of the president's senior staff. Mr. Scaramucci's abrupt removal came just 10 days after the wealthy New York financier was brought on to the West Wing staff, a move that convulsed an already chaotic White House and led to the departures of Sean Spicer, the former press secretary, and Reince Priebus, the president's first chief of staff. From a report: Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House Communications Director," the statement read. "Mr. Scaramucci felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team. We wish him all the best." Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is scheduled to brief the press corps, on-camera, at 12:45 pm PST. Scaramucci was given the job on Friday, June 21, and by Thursday, July 27, became something of a national laughingstock when The New Yorker reported his profanity-laced conversation with the magazine's Washington correspondent the night before. He was hired by the president to take charge of a communications operation in disarray, and his hiring coincided with the departure of White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Scaramucci, in his conversation with The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, was extremely critical of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and predicted, correctly, that then-chief of staff Reince Priebus would be removed from his position. Following the publication of Lizza's article, it became an open question in Washington whether Scaramucci would keep his job.
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Trump Removes Anthony Scaramucci From Communications Director Role

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  • He made a good decision here.

    • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @02:57PM (#54915109) Homepage

      Immediately after making the bad one to put him in the role in the first place.

      Again and again I can't help but be reminded of this video [youtube.com]. "If we screw up your vetting process, the next one is FREE!!!!!!"

      • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:12PM (#54915273) Homepage Journal
        Scaramucci, Scaramucci....will you do the Fandango?

        Thunderbolts and lightning, very VERY frightening ME!!

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31, 2017 @02:58PM (#54915129)

      When you have to keep firing people that you've hired it generally points to you not being a very good judge of character.

      • You're FIRED!

        And you're fired!
        And you're fired!
        You're ALL GETTING FIRED!

        LOL, in a whistling past the graveyard way...

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jellomizer ( 103300 )

          You may not like Trump (I don't) but laughing at his misfortune, is also laughing at your own, even if you are not a US citizen.
          If the US goes down in chaos, so will the rest of the world. Laughing now at his misfortune, is only leading to your own. Sure you want your side to win, and the people who voted for the other side to loose, and loose so bad that they knew that they are wrong... But that doesn't happen, at least not without complete crippling defeat.

          • by Upd Late ( 3763325 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @04:33PM (#54915899)

            Sometimes laughing is the only thing you can do when confronted with the absurdity that's impacting your life. The laughing is also a big fat "we told you so". Sadly, this creates a defense mechanism in Trump voters who now believe they need to defend / rationalize their choice.

            The man still has a 38% approval rating. 4 out of 10 Americans think he's doing a good job. If that isn't hilarious in its absurdity, then I don't know what is.

          • Really? Trump failing is going to be HUGE in term of benefits, same as he's already destroyed the Tea Party by accident. He's got both sides of both houses ignoring him and talking about working together. He is demanding they try again to pass a health reform bill, and the senate just said no, they're moving on.

      • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:21PM (#54915337)
        That may have been true for previous administrations, when the White House was more of a workplace and less of a reality show.
        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          That may have been true for previous administrations, when the White House was more of a workplace and less of a reality show.

          Reality has nothing to do with it, dearie.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        A workplace with a revolving door for their workers says a lot about their management and how the company is ran. There are companies big (to big to fail) and small that run this way. It shows utter incompetence from the top down. Fortunately in our case, it doesn't always sink a company or in this case a government. We will recover and America will be great once again. We just have to wait out the orange pussy grabber to finish not doing his job and move forward.

      • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @04:42PM (#54915947) Journal

        Well an old despair.com poster once stated "Morale: often the best solution is to fire all the unhappy people". Sadly and with a sense of irony it correct.

        It is not a character flow if you need to do a turn around. It's appropriate. All the time shows not a character flow but rather under paying and inappropriately managed.

        A famous MBA book called Good To Great companies that have did an amazing turn around and compare them it a competitor which was the former market leader.

        Basically it boiled down to a CEO saying THIS IS BULLSHIT! We need a change with his senior executives. They implement a turn around and give a "Bus is moving in a new direction. Either get on the bus or get off?". The gray hairs who while and others who do pissing contests are fired. Morale is improved and direction changes. Then company takes bigger competitor down and wins!

        Trump is inappropriate and unprofessional. This caused his staff to do the same and in fight. Gen Kelly is a no nonsense guy who wants discipline and teamwork. Yes firings should continue and staff should report to him. Not Trump since he won't change. When change needs happening it's best to use those who are not so disgruntled they can't get unboard.

        Oh and those fired from such positions almost always are happier. It serves no one good to keep bitter angry people who cause problems and not solutions

    • by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:00PM (#54915147)

      Scaramucci strikes me as awfully similar in many ways to Trump himself - a foul mouthed, self centered narcissist. I guess Trump does not like to have others like himself around. What surprises me is that he did not realize what Scaramucci was like before appointing him. I guess, as usual, Trump failed to listen to those around him.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:09PM (#54915237)

        Scaramucci was using an social engineering tactic called mimicking that is useful in ingratiating yourself to your target. Ever seen side by side video of both he and Trump speaking? He puts froth the same sort of mannerism and gestures that Trump does.

        It was Trump's new chief of staff (Kelly) that demanded Scaramucci be gone, no one who was career military is going to put up with the likes of Scaramucci's BS.

        • "He puts froth the same sort of mannerism and gestures that Trump does."
          QFTFS
          Quoted for True Freudian Slip.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:04PM (#54915185)

      It was Kelly.
      It wasn't trump as he is too dumb to do that.

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:04PM (#54915189)

      Part of me wonders if this was planned all along (and by all along I mean the last few days) as a way to get rid of Preibus. Trump obviously isn't happy with the GOP and getting rid of Priebus was a good way to put a shot over the GOP's bow. So, bring in Mooch, have him get into a pissing match with Priebus, use that as an excuse to get rid of Priebus, and bring in Kelly who might be more loyal to Trump. Then, when Mooch has done his job, cut him loose. Trump gets to get rid of poor Spicey, gets to rebuke the GOP over their failed repeal of Obamacare, and gets a new Chief of Staff and (eventually) a new Communications Director.

      Of course, the other part of me thinks Trump is so unhinged and disjointed he can't even plan far enough ahead to decide whether he wants original or extra crispy KFC waiting for him in the limo that takes him from Air Force One to Mar a Lago on his biweekly "definitely not golfing" weekend golf trips.

      • by sysrammer ( 446839 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:41PM (#54915507) Homepage

        I wonder myself. Trump is able to give the Chattering Classes plenty of fuel to keep them occupied, while slowly filling the positions that he needs with people loyal to Trump and not an ideology. It takes time to execute regime change as practiced in America.

      • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @04:03PM (#54915653)

        Part of me wonders if this was planned all along (and by all along I mean the last few days) as a way to get rid of Preibus. Trump obviously isn't happy with the GOP and getting rid of Priebus was a good way to put a shot over the GOP's bow. So, bring in Mooch, have him get into a pissing match with Priebus, use that as an excuse to get rid of Priebus, and bring in Kelly who might be more loyal to Trump. Then, when Mooch has done his job, cut him loose. Trump gets to get rid of poor Spicey, gets to rebuke the GOP over their failed repeal of Obamacare, and gets a new Chief of Staff and (eventually) a new Communications Director.

        Of course, the other part of me thinks Trump is so unhinged and disjointed he can't even plan far enough ahead to decide whether he wants original or extra crispy KFC waiting for him in the limo that takes him from Air Force One to Mar a Lago on his biweekly "definitely not golfing" weekend golf trips.

        10 days is more long term planning than I'd generally give Trump credit for.

        Besides, replacing Priebus with Kelly who then turfed Spicer would have been pretty good optics. In that scenario you have the "disciplined military man coming in and taking charge" narrative.

        Instead Trump looks like a fool for hiring Scaramucci and looks weak for having is Chief of Staff come in and reverse his hiring position. Plus, you have yet another instance of someone joining the administration and losing their reputation in the process. You're not going to have much luck recruiting good people.

    • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:06PM (#54915207)
      If only Trump listened to Trump who criticized Obama for having 3 Chiefs of Staff in 3 years. [thehill.com] The Internet is forever.
    • Agreed, but wow. As others have pointed out, Mr. Trump does not appear to be a good judge of character. Or perhaps his team of advisers are not. Either way, this administration seems unable to keep its (White) house in order. Is this how they conduct all of their affairs? This should be simple as this is a process where they control all/most of the factors. What happens when this administration is dealing with another country, or sensitive situation, where they do not control many/most of the factors?

      At eve

      • I can only guess but former Marine General John Kelly seems to be a no-nonsense kind of person. That and Scaramucci did something that you should never do to Trump: upstage him.
        • And how long do you imagine Trump is going to tolerate Kelly? Yes, a lot of people are pinning their hopes on Kelly bringing some order to the White House, but by and large the disorder is coming from Kelly's new boss, which means the person most in need of being controlled is the President himself, and he does not appear to be the kind of man who will tolerate being handled.

          I wish General Kelly the best of luck. I don't imagine he'll be around long himself.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      HOW can that be insightful? The reference of "He" is not clear unless you refer back to the Subject: line. Okay, so it's #PresidentTweety, but I STRONGLY doubt this was even his decision. The Mooch is the Donald's soulmate. You don't fire your TRUE soulmate.

      I think this decision came directly from General Kelly. Trump has curled into the fetal position and has retrogressed to his high school days in the fake military private school. In Trump's delusional memory he was a YUGE success as a fake platoon comman

  • by deadwill69 ( 1683700 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @02:57PM (#54915107)

    Man this crew is setting some records! I wonder how many more they'll set before the summers out. All this entertainment and still haven't passed anything of mention.

    • Man this crew is setting some records! I wonder how many more they'll set before the summers out. All this entertainment and still haven't passed anything of mention.

      Well, Trump did champion the concept of Drain the Swamp a time or two.

      Perhaps he overlooked the fact the swamp was on his own property...

    • Man this crew is setting some records! I wonder how many more they'll set before the summers out. All this entertainment and still haven't passed anything of mention.

      Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) has a link to a Reddit article that listed something like more than 50 "accomplishments" that Trump has done with the article being created to specifically rebut the idea that he's done nothing. About half of them were executive orders Trump signed and I honestly right now have no way to know if those are accomplishing anything or not. He's been pretty busy deporting illegal immigrants, and I have one friend who supports Trump who really likes this a lot. So I'm just pointing

    • This administration also recently secured a record for the lowest approval rating ever at the 6 month mark, so there's that.

  • Trump will finally have a staff in place that can run the White House.
  • If I were to write a comedy skit about this presidency, no one would buy it because it would be too far fetched.
  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:05PM (#54915201)
    Three more Communications Directors and Trump gets a set of steak knives.
  • Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2017 [twitter.com]

    • Also, every president in recent memory has presided over a "highest stock market ever" moment because the stock market generally keeps going up in the medium/long term...
  • by shuz ( 706678 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:07PM (#54915225) Homepage Journal

    Given the wealth that most of the cabinet and staff have in the current white house it confuses me why many of them would want to risk image issues or care to face the daily workload and headaches that these positions entail. Though many are earning a comfortable salary [politico.com], the money pulled in is likely secondary to the access to impact decisions as well as access to information. Given the chaos and drama however we must be left to think carefully about what kind of corruption might be brewing behind this relatively opaque administration. Like a poorly tuned monitoring system there is so much noise in US politics right now it is difficult to pick out where the real harm to the world might be.

    • by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @04:08PM (#54915691)

      IMO:
      1) They vastly underestimate the work required. These are people who believe government doesn't do anything, so the people running the government must not do anything. So they believe the job is easy.

      2) They have egos larger than galaxies, more fragile than egg shells, and relish the opportunity to show just how great they are.

      Unfortunately these positions mean they are not always surrounded by obsequious underlings eager to sing their praises, so their incompetence becomes rapidly apparent. Thus damaging their massive but fragile egos.

      Which causes them to lash out, demonstrating more incompetence, causing more damage, and so on.

  • by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:09PM (#54915241)

    Most business organizations I've witnessed tend to thrive when there's a level of stability. For example, people know they should talk to Person X in charge of Process Y directly to get the real deal on things. It's good to get people out who are pretty toxic, but doesn't government work the same way? Don't companies and wealthy people use the back-channel methods to actually get work done?

    We'll see what happens...I'm hoping that there's just a ton of drama, things basically get parked for 4 years, and other countries don't see it as an opportunity to get ahead while everyone's distracted.

    • Yeah with a constant churn responsibilities and tribal knowledge fall apart. Where they can, I guess congress can 'route around' the executive branch for some things. I have a hard time envisioning him vetoing anything that gets hyped on Fox and Friends. But the house and senate leadership will be just as headless as they were for healthcare so who knows.
      • To be fair, Ryan and McConnell were given an impossible task, at least on the timelines Trump wanted. Now I'll concede that the GOP deserved this slapdown because it's now clear that for seven years that they were trying to bring Obamacare down, they had no intention of ever actually doing so, so whatever damage they take from their base is well-earned. At the end of the day, however, they set about to climb a very high mountain in a very short period of time, knowing full well that it had very low chances

  • This is killing me. I was really looking forward for more of Mario Cantone as Scaramucci on The President Show.

  • With the potty mouth remarks Anthony Scaramucci made late Thrusday he coudldn't of lasted. On CNN that same morning Anthony Scaramucci watched what he said while making it apparent he has a long time hatred of two members of Trumps staff (and what I watched).

    When his nemesis Reince Priebus was fired Friday and Trump said nothing of Anthony Scaramucci, I figured it over for Trump. Put in another postion (couldn't define removed) I figure he's on a clock.

    Go figure. I don't do political post, so the one I do -

  • by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:36PM (#54915467) Journal

    In the future, everybody will be a member of Trump's cabinet for 15 minutes.

  • Trump impeaches Trump, then has him removed from the Presidency.

    But seriously, this admin has higher turnover than a freakin' MacDonalds.
    Though in the particular case of Scaramucci, I fully support this move.
    Hey, fugettaboutit.

  • by Whorhay ( 1319089 ) on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:36PM (#54915475)

    Personally I think Scaramucci's firing came down to his refusal to do the Fandango.

  • "Th-Th-The, Th-Th-The, Th-Th... That's all, folks!""

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