White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci appears to have a very simple strategy for success in his new gig: Sound as much like Donald Trump as humanly possible.
“We’re going to win so much you are actually going to get tired of winning,” Scaramucci promised “New Day” co-anchor Chris Cuomo Wednesday morning on CNN.
That is, of course, a Trump quote — repeated almost verbatim.
“We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.'” Trump told a Montana crowd in May 2016.
On the day before South Carolina’s crucial 2016 primary, Trump said: “We’re going to win so much. You’re going to get tired of winning. You’re going to say, ‘Please Mr. President, I have a headache. Please, don’t win so much. This is getting terrible.'”
As far back as September 2015, Trump was warning of the perils of so much winning. “We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with the winning,” Trump said during a visit to Capitol Hill. “Believe me, I agree, you’ll never get bored with winning. We never get bored.”
The “winning” quote wasn’t the only one in Scaramucci’s interview with Cuomo — it lasted almost 30 minutes! — in which the new staffer appeared to be directly borrowing both the words and the tone of his boss.
To wit:
* On Trump: “He is arguably the most media savvy person in history, but certainly of our times.”
* On Trump, again: “Isn’t that the best thing about him that he’s wickedly wealthy … and he’s still able to relate to regular people.”
* On whether Trump ordered the firing of Michael Short: “I’m straightly not answering your question.”
* On Short’s firing, again: “I didn’t want to fire him as much as I wanted him to resign.”
* On his credentials: “I’m a trained economist.”
Scaramucci also repeatedly talked about his “love” for Trump. He commended Trump’s “upfrontness” with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Um, ok.) And he said people who leak information out of the White House are driven to do so by “insecurity” and “underconfidence.”
What Scaramucci has obviously internalized is that Trump likes people like him.
Sean Spicer, the former press secretary who resigned following Scaramucci’s hiring, was never Trump’s cup of tea. He didn’t wear the kind of suits Trump approved of, he wasn’t part of the New York smart set and he wasn’t rich.
Scaramucci is and does all of those things. He is New York to his core. He went to Harvard Law School. He’s rich after a career at Goldman Sachs and as a hedge fund manager. He has nice suits. He looks the part. He’s smooth.
It’s not a leap to say Trump likes Scaramucci because the new communications director reminds the president of himself at a younger age. (Trump is 71, Scaramucci is 53.)
Knowing that, Scaramucci is endeavoring to sound as much like Trump as possible. After all, you can’t fire yourself, right? Right?
Scaramucci is a survivor. And he’s quickly identified the best way to survive the political car crash that is this White House: Get as close to the President as possible — even if that means stealing a few (or a lot) of his best lines.
