As Sean Spicer steps out into SNL history (aren’t we all owed one last Spicer press briefing, held, as is traditional, in the bushes?), Donald Trump has already signed his new communications director.
The new man behind the unseen-by-cameras podium is financier Anthony Scaramucci. Because what the Trump White House really needed was another wealthy Wall Street hedge fund manager who just pocketed hundreds of millions for selling off his company to a government-connected group of Chinese investors.
Scaramucci was considered for a job before Trump’s inauguration, but ethical concerns over that sale kept him from taking a seat at the cabinet table. Now, apparently, Trump has decided that either Scaramucci has sufficiently cooled off or, more likely, ethics no longer matters.
Though the appointment was opposed by the departed Spicer and the not-yet departed Reince Priebus, there’s little doubt that Scaramucci fits well with Trump.
In the summer of 2016, hedge-fund manager Anthony Scaramucci hitched his wagon to Donald Trump's star. Although the irrepressible money man had previously supported Jeb Bush's bid for office (and Scott Walker's before that), and had once described Trump as a “hack politician” and “inherited money dude from Queens County,” Scaramucci, a.k.a. the Mooch, turned out to be uniquely suited to defending Trump. Having gone to bat for Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis, he was already an expert at putting lipstick on a pig.
“Mooch” will be called on for his makeup skills regularly in the near future. In addition to Spicer heading for the door, this week as already seen Trump lose the spokesman for his personal legal team as the rest of his team looks for ways to distribute pardons and sink the Russian investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Mooch is gonna need a bigger lipstick.