Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
- Anthony Scaramucci, the former short-lived White House communications director, blasted President Donald Trump as a "very weak troll" and "a bully" as their public feud continues to escalate.
- The online brawl between the two began when Scaramucci, who served just 11 days in the position in the summer of 2017 before being fired, criticized the president’s response to two mass shootings.
- After Scaramucci was critical of the president in a number of media appearances, Trump blasted Scaramucci as "totally incapable" of handling his job in the administration.
- On Monday, Scaramucci called Trump "a very weak troll," adding that "bullying is the most anti-American thing in our culture and it is emanating from the Oval Office."
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Anthony Scaramucci, the former short-lived White House communications director, blasted President Donald Trump as a "very weak troll" and "a bully" as their public feud continues to escalate.
After Trump attacked Scaramucci as having "nothing to do with my election victory" and claiming he "just wanted to be on TV," Scaramucci tweeted at Trump, "you’re losing your fastball,’ and added, "Time to call in a good relief pitcher. @potus is lost."
The online brawl between the two began when Scaramucci, who famously served just 11 days in the summer of 2017 before being fired, criticized the president’s response to mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio in a Thursday appearance on MSNBC’s "Hardball" with Chris Matthews.
On "Hardball," Scaramucci said Trump’s day of visits to the two cities on August 7 was "a total catastrophe," particularly calling out Trump using a visit to an El Paso hospital as a photo op. He later tweeted that Trump should do more to denounce white supremacy. On HBO’s "Real Time" with Bill Maher, he said some of Trump’s actions were "indefensible," and decried his tariffs as "a regressive tax."
After being criticized by Scaramucci in the media appearances, Trump couldn’t resist tweeting about the Mooch, calling Scaramucci "totally incapable of handling" his former job in the White House and writing that he "now seems to do nothing but television as the all-time expert on ‘President Trump.’ Like many other so-called television experts, he knows very little about me."
Scaramucci hit back on Saturday, saying that "recently he has said things that divide the country in a way that is unacceptable. So I didn’t pass the 100% litmus test. Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country."
Then in a Saturday interview with Axios, Scaramucci compared Trump to a nuclear "reactor melting down" and said he hoped the Republican party would nominate a different candidate as their nominee for president in 2020, telling CNN’s John Berman he did not plan to vote for Trump in 2020 in a Monday morning interview.
Scaramucci further explained to his Twitter followers that he "tried to see best in [Trump] based on private interactions and select policy alignment. But his increasingly divisive rhetoric – and damage it’s doing to fabric of our society – outweighs any short-term economic gain."
Trump then fired off another tweet on Monday saying that Scaramucci was only criticizing Trump because he didn’t get another job in the Trump administration after being fired.
In response, Scaramucci called Trump "a very weak troll," adding that "bullying is the most anti-American thing in our culture and it is emanating from the Oval Office" and claiming "many" people had called him about replacing Trump as the 2020 nominee.
See Also:
- POWER RANKING: Here’s who has the best chance of becoming the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee
- Trump insulted Ohio Democrats after visiting Dayton shooting victims, and mistakenly thought one had run for president
- Ivanka Trump’s attempt to highlight gun violence in Chicago backfired when the city’s mayor slammed her misleading tweets as ‘nonsense’
Source: Business Insider – gpanetta@businessinsider.com (Grace Panetta)