Anthony Scaramucci says it’s former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s fault that President Trump has such a bad relationship with the news media, and said former White House press secretary Sean Spicer also bears some responsibility.
Scaramucci released his new book Tuesday, Trump, the Blue-Collar President, in which he recalls Trump asking him why the media didn’t see things his way.
“What the hell do you think happened, Anthony?” Trump asked Scaramucci last year.
“You let Bannon declare war on the media!” Scaramucci replied.
Scaramucci, a Trump loyalist, was brought into the White House in July, reportedly at the urging of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the president’s son in law and daughter, who also serve as advisers. He was fired after 11 days by the new White House chief of staff John Kelly, following vulgar comments Scaramucci made in an interview with New Yorker magazine.
Scaramucci wrote in his book that his foremost job at the White House was to fire anyone who had been leaking to the press, but he said he also wanted to make an earnest attempt at building a helpful relationship with the press.
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“In looking back, I was naive to think that I could just waltz in and do the job,” he wrote. “But I also knew how dysfunctional the White House press department was, and I believed I knew the main reason why. Steve Bannon had started a war with the media as a publicity gimmick.”
Scaramucci also blamed former White House press secretary Sean Spicer for bad blood with the press. He called it “childish and spiteful” when Spicer went for an extended period without doing a televised press briefing.
He said that he urged Trump to have an “armistice” with the press.
“Okay,” Scaramucci says Trump told him. “Let’s fix this.”
The relationship between the White House and the press has only in recent days grown more tense. At a campaign style rally last week he praised Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., for winning his special election race in 2017, even though the day before the vote count he had body slammed a reporter who approached him to ask about healthcare.
