Drama in the White House after a staff shake up on Friday grabbed the headlines all weekend as new communications director Anthony Scaramucci took the spotlight upon joining the administration.
Scaramucci had a starring role on the Sunday shows, appearing on multiple networks.
He sparred with CNN’s Jake Tapper in a 27-minute long interview and admitted the White House had a communications problem that leads President Trump to tweet to get his message out. If he’s successful, Trump may tweet less, Scaramucci said.
He also said Trump — despite his tweet on Saturday morning — isn’t considering pardoning anyone, echoing a message from Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow.
Scaramucci’s past went under the microscope as he started deleting old tweets that showed his liberal viewpoints on policies like climate change and gun control.
He said the tweets represented old views, from which he had “evolved.” In another tweet, Scaramucci warned the press that the days of “gotcha” stories were over and said his goal is to restore “fairness” in the media.
Scaramucci and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders seemed to get their messaging crossed over a deal between the House and Senate on a new Russia sanctions bill. Sanders said Trump plans on signing the bill, but Scaramucci said the president hasn’t decided.
Lawmakers announced the deal on Saturday and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate urged lawmakers to pass the stricter sanctions. The House is planning on voting on the package on Tuesday.
Iran is also a subject of possible sanctions in Tuesday’s vote. Despite the possibility of those sanctions, the Iranians launched a new missile program during the weekend.
Scaramucci also rubbed some liberals the wrong way with a comment near the end of his CNN interview. He told Sanders he liked the hair and makeup person that prepared them for the briefing on Friday, but some liberals took this as a comment on Sanders’ appearance.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also sparred with a CNN anchor and accused the network of making a “business decision” to be against Trump.
The weekend started off with a long tweet barrage from Trump, in which he didn’t deny a report that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had “substantive” talks with former Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.
He later commended his son, Donald Trump Jr., for releasing his emails — including some that showed willingness to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government — instead of deleting them, as Clinton did.
Trump also mused about the president’s ability to pardon anyone. Three constitutional lawyers argued in an op-ed in the Washington Post that Trump’s pardoning power does not extend to himself.
Trump then tried to pressure Republican senators into getting on board with repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. A vote on healthcare reform is expected this week.
Later on Sunday, Trump warned Republican lawmakers there will be consequences if they fail to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act after nearly a decade of promising to do so.
Later on Saturday, Trump spoke at the commissioning at the USS Gerald R. Ford, calling it a “100,000 ton message to the world.”
At the same speech, Trump caused some controversy by plugging the GOP’s healthcare reform effort and his attempts to increase defense funding and then telling sailors to call their representatives and lobby for the measures.
Trump wound down the weekend with a round of golf at his course in Sterling, Va., and then fired off some more tweets criticizing Republicans for not protecting him enough from Democratic attacks over the Russian election scandal.
Trump will see an attempt to check his pardoning power from Rep. Al Green, who plans to announce Monday legislation that would prevent the president from pardoning himself.
In the upper chamber, Sen. Chuck Grassley urged leakers to release the “full text” of Sessions’ conversations with Kislyak to end the speculation about what was said between the attorney general and the Russian government.
Sen. John McCain, recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot and a brain cancer diagnosis, took a hike with his daughter Megan on Saturday.
Sen. Ted Cruz urged his amendment to the Better Care Reconciliation Act to be taken up and voted on because he believed it could be a “big win” for the Republican party. Cruz thinks his amendment — which allows insurers to sell plans that do not comply with Obamacare regulations for cheaper as long as they sell at least one plan that does comply with the regulations — could be the solution to the debate.
Sen. John Thune said the Senate will be voting on healthcare this week, but it’s still not exactly clear what they’ll be voting on. He said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will decide if the Senate will vote to advance a bill fully repealing the Affordable Care Act or the BCRA, which repeals and replaces parts of Obamacare.
Sen. Rand Paul said he’d vote for the measure to advance a bill fully repealing Obamacare, but if BCRA is brought up he’s still a “no.”
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats are considering single-payer healthcare as an option for their new economic agenda they’re laying out this week.
That agenda is important because it needs to show people what Democrats stand for and Schumer said it’s on Democrats for not doing enough for promoting their own agenda.
Sen. Susan Collins urged Trump to step back from criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller and his top law enforcement officials over the investigation into Russian meddling in the election.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin meanwhile took aim at Trump’s voter fraud commission and deemed it “what Putin wants” because it undermines American institutions.
A former worker at Carrier slammed Trump for “blowing smoke up our asses” during his deal-making process back in December when he purported to save the jobs at the factory, which is now undergoing layoffs.
In some happy news, an American college student was released from detention in China where he had been held for about a week over a tussle with a taxi driver. The driver was apparently being rough with his mother and the student, Guthrie McLean, defended her, according to reports.
And finally, on a lighter note, a producer with The Simpsons revealed the long-running cartoon actually denied Trump an opportunity to guest star on the show during the time The Apprentice was becoming a major TV hit.
