Culture

Anthony Scaramucci Adds Fuel To Reports About Trump Suspecting Steve Bannon Of Being A Leaker

On Sunday morning, Anthony Scaramucci popped over to ABC’s This Week to weigh in on a few things: (1) Reports of President Trump suspecting Steve Bannon of being a leaker; (2) This weekend’s violence in Charlottesville. The Mooch, of course, spent his short White House tenure threatening to fire all leakers. He was the main reason that Reince Priebus was targeted as one (true or not) and pushed out of the chief of staff position. And of course, Scaramucci famously referred to Senior Advisor Steve Bannon as one who self-fellatiates. There’s no love lost there.

Speaking with George Stephanopoulos, the Mooch addressed the plight of his old colleague by stating, “I think the president knows what he’s going to do with Steve Bannon.” And he hinted that the president’s refusal to condemn Nazis and white supremacists could be because of Bannon’s influence:

“I think people are probably reluctant to tell him the truth. Maybe Ivanka would do that. You saw her tweet this morning. Maybe Jared would do that.

“But you also got this sort of Bannon-bart influence in there, which I think is a snag on the president. If the president really wants to execute that legislative agenda that I think is so promising for the American people, the lower-middle class people and the middle class people, then he has to move away from that sort of Bannon-bart nonsense.”

The Axios report in question framed Bannon as a long-time occupant of Trump crosshairs, although the president hasn’t quite found a valid reason to ditch the guy. Axios states that new Chief of Staff John Kelly is working on the issue, and here’s a key passage:

Key West Wing colleagues believe Bannon is an instigator of leaks targeting National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. The stories have been driven by Breitbart News, where Bannon was executive chairman before joining Trump’s presidential campaign as chief executive in August. On Thursday, Trump backed McMaster as “our friend.”

In this ABC News clip, the Mooch switches back to Bannon’s white nationalist reputation and says that while he never discussed the subject with him, “The toleration of it by Steve Bannon is inexcusable.”

You can watch Scarmucci’s full This Week appearance below:

https://youtu.be/pTvXx8uO4vw

P.S. The Mooch popped onto Twitter for an impromptu #AskTheMooch Q&A session. It wasn’t very fruitful.

(Via ABC News & Axios)