Anthony Scaramucci said Thursday that he had been “blacklisted” from the White House by Chief of Staff John Kelly during an interview with CNN’s “New Day,” where he also anticipated that more West Wing staffers would follow Hope Hicks out the door thanks to the “terrible” morale under the notoriously strict retired general.
“The morale’s terrible, and the reason why the morale is terrible is that the rule by fear and intimidation does not work in a civilian environment,” Scaramucci said, adding that “there will be a further evacuation of talent.”
Of course, it’s important to remember that Kelly was responsible for ousting Scaramucci 11 days after he stepped in to the (perpetually vacant) communications director job, allegedly because of a profanity-filled statement he made to the New Yorker.
But the Mooch apparently couldn’t resist kicking his old nemesis while he’s down, blasting Kelly for purportedly ignoring former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter’s history of domestic abuse. He also claimed that the erstwhile Marine General rules through “fear and intimidation.”
In addition to Hicks, longtime WH deputy communications director Josh Raffel said earlier this week that he is planning to leave the White House, too. Exits might be hastened thanks to dozens of staffers losing their top-level security clearance.
“This is how it works…I guess he’s an honorable marine so he’s got to look himself in the mirror and come to grips with what he knew and when he knew it. I’ll tell you what I don’t like. I talked a little bit of smack about two guys that we were trying to get rid of, he fires me in five seconds,” Scaramucci said.
“These guys are smacking up their wives and he’s trying to figure out a way to keep them inside the White House. So it’s very dishonest to me.”
Finally, Scaramucci predicted during a separate interview with Bloomberg that Kelly would eventually drive the entire staff out of the West Wing, while also insinuating that the general is too tough on “Trump loyalists” – presumably referring, in part, to himself.
“Does the president want to lose everyone because of General Jackass?” Scaramucci said.
“If you want to kill Trump loyalists because you’re into martial law, go ahead and do that,” he said of Kelly. “But it’s not helping the president.”
Scaramucci reportedly still talks with Trump, who has a notorious habit for keeping in touch with former employees.
Scaramucci also said he now fears Kelly will thwart his bid to sell his stake in SkyBridge Capital to China’s HNA Group Co. The sale has been stuck at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews foreign acquisitions of domestic businesses for security risks.
“Let’s see what he says about that,” Scaramucci said. “That’ll be the next food fight. ‘Say, his company is before CFIUS right now. Are you going to block that deal?’”
Scaramucci reached the agreement to sell his stake to the Chinese conglomerate in January 2017 as he was shedding business conflicts to take a job in the White House.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-01/scaramucci-says-general-jackass-john-kelly-blacklisted-him-west-wing
