Anthony Scaramucci said Cabinet members and White House staffers are bothered by President Trump’s controversial tweets but are fearful of speaking out about them.
Scaramucci, who served less than two weeks as White House communications director in 2017, was participating in an interview on Yahoo! News’ “Skullduggery” podcast on Friday when he slammed Republicans who have not spoken out against Trump’s tweets as being “fraidy cats.”
“If the president is now surrounded by people that are not going to tell him the truth, and they’re gonna confirm his biases, which may not be correct, that’s a recipe for disaster,” Scaramucci said.
Trump faced heavy criticism last month for telling four freshman Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Last Saturday, he went on a Twitter rant in which he called Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Baltimore district a “rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” The president also claimed that living conditions in Baltimore were “far worse and more dangerous” than the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. The tweets and comments about Cummings and Baltimore persisted throughout the week.
Democratic lawmakers denounced Trump’s tweets as pure racism, while Republicans have largely refused to speak out in condemnation of the president’s statements. There have been some exceptions, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who scolded Trump for mocking a break-in at Cummings’ Baltimore home.
Scaramucci said he was “shocked” that more Republicans had not rebuked Trump’s tweets.
“They know that it’s not the right thing,” Scaramucci said. “The president likes to double down on stuff, and he never likes to apologize, but down deep, he’s got to know too because he’s really not a racist.”
Scaramucci said that people in 2019 should not be arguing over whether the “leader of the free world” is a racist and encouraged Trump to tone down his word choice to avoid charges of racism.
Despite his criticism of Trump’s tweets, Scaramucci said he agreed with Trump’s analysis of the conditions of Baltimore. He does not see the president’s Twitter rant against Cummings as racist but recognizes that many people were offended by the statements.
“These inner cities, which have been controlled by the left for 40 or 50 years, they’re not working,” Scaramucci said. “The educational system is flawed. The gun violence is through the roof. The rat infestation, all that sort of stuff is prevalent. It’s not racist to say that objectively and look at it for what it is.”
