All the mind melters from Anthony Scaramucci’s CNN interview
Earlier this week, CNN’s Jake Tapper sat down for an interview with the Incoming White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. While his hire comes amid a White House communications shakeup, Scaramucci’s interview with Tapper is all the evidence you need that the White House’s issue with miscommunication isn’t going away any time soon.
First off, big ups to Tapper for the way he starts the interview.
“First of all, Anthony, congratulations on the new job. So you come to the White House at a time when President Trump has historically low approval ratings, he’s signed into law zero major pieces of legislation, healthcare’s on life support, multiple investigations are under way. I guess the big question is, is President Trump facing a communications problem or is it a substance problem?”
And it picked up from there!
The following is an account of the moments where Scaramucci left me confident that SNL is gonna have a lot of material for Beck Bennett to grow into.
Tapper asks Scaramucci which between “authenticity” or “restraint” are more important for the President at this point. Scaramucci begins answering before choosing either. He instead offers a message to those whom Trump recently made incendiary comments about on Twitter and in an interview with the New York Times.
“That’s the President,” Scaramucci says. “The President likes speaking from the heart, he likes telling what he likes and he dislikes. He’s the type of coach that I worked very well with in high school football. It’s okay with me if the President doesn’t like certain things that I’m doing. We’re all on the same team. I would prefer the direct and immediate feedback as opposed to anything else.
…
So for me, I would tell people that that’s the President. He’s 71 years old, we’re not going to change him. By the way, last time I checked, he won the presidency, he’s going to win it again in 2020. He’s our guy, and so learn how to work with and operate with him.”
I, for one, do hope that one thing we can get from Scaramucci, if not answers to questions, are stories from his athletic past. Is the hustle and bustle of Washington reminiscent of his time at football camp? Is his Sisyphean struggle with offering answers to questions just like his battle for the JV team’s third-string WR position? At least keep us entertained.
This appears to be an appeal for authenticity, but Scaramucci never actually says as much. Actually, Scaramucci makes a pretty compelling case as to why you should just deal with your grandfather’s increasingly erratic behavior. Look, he’s 71 years old, he’s in this room right now, he’s going to be in this room in 2020. Why don’t you learn to enjoy him?
Shortly after this comes the moment where Scaramucci rats out Donald Trump as his anonymous source saying “that if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled those e-mails, you would have never seen it.” Tapper presses him on the anonymous source for five seconds and immediately Scaramucci folds.
“How about it was the president, Jake. He called me from Air Force One, and he said to me ‘hey, maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it.’”
Never mind the ratting out, because some good ink has already been spent on that. Let’s deal with what Scaramucci credits Trump as saying, which was basically that the simple fact the question regarding Russian election interference is there to be answered is the reason why the answer to the question is no they didn’t. This type of rhetorical witchcraft is why Scaramucci has this job, I imagine, and it’s also why I’d be suspicious that his high school football coach had anything interesting to say after all.
Scaramucci also took to a bevy of anecdotes in defending Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and one of three family members under FBI investigation, and Donald Trump Jr., President Trump’s son and the other dude under FBI investigation. There was a lot of justificatory talk about being a high integrity guy, a great guy, an honest man, and generally somebody whom Scaramucci likes spending time with. Mind you, this is similar to the praise that Scaramucci’s high school football coach probably would have received.
Later, Tapper questioned Scaramucci regarding the op-ed he wrote for FoxBusiness.com on January 13, 2016 in which he said that “Unbridled demagoguery has driven the GOP to an inflection point from which there is no turning back,” as well as some tweets, which Scaramucci has since deleted, in which he espoused beliefs in favor of gun control and action on climate change. Tapper essentially leaves Scaramucci with the task of proving that he is not somebody who would “suppress everything he believes in order to get close to power.” The following is the exchange between Scaramucci and Tapper.
“Scaramucci: That’s a ridiculous, Washington, sort of narrative. Number one, it’s not true. Number two, all I’m doing by deleting the tweets is sending people a message. What I hate — here’s what I hate about Washington — I mean I hate a lot of things about Washington, but we only have a one hour show. But let me tell you one of the things I really hate about Washington. We have this political purity test on policy. So, if I’m for something and I’m against something, then all of a sudden I’m a hypocrite. Yet, some of the greatest leaders known to mankind — Winston Churchill started out as a liberal and then he became a conservative. Ronald Reagan started out as a democrat under FDR, and then he became a conservative. Some of the smartest minds, and some of the smartest political leaders have changed and evolved and adapted their opinions.
Tapper: “Yeah but you evolved from thinking Donald Trump was a demagogue to thinking Donald Trump wasn’t a demagogue.”
Scaramucci: I didn’t say that Donald Trump was a demagogue. Where does it say in that article that Donald Trump is a demagogue?”
Well, any time you can answer a question about your past political leanings by comparing yourself to Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, you have to. It definitely is not weird and does not at all come off as you reaching. But also and more importantly, the answer in its entirety makes no sense. Perhaps, Scaramucci did not really say Trump was a demagogue. Although, if you actually read the op-ed that might come as a surprise. Also, perhaps Scaramucci, like Churchill and Reagan, is allowed to change his mind. However, it doesn’t really make sense for Scaramucci to say that he’s both changed his mind on Trump and the Republican party and that he didn’t actually say those things about Trump and the Republican party in the first place. If so, then what are you changing your mind from?
All of this was a lot to process, but I’m sure Anthony Scaramucci or Beck Bennet will clear some of it up next time one of them is on TV as Anthony Scaramucci.
