Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, who was fired by President Donald Trump after a brief 11-day stint, has been plotting with Weekly Standard founder and staunch never-Trumper Bill Kristol about how to replace Trump on the 2020 Republican ticket, according to a CNBC report.
Kristol confirmed having spoken to Scaramucci in text messages to CNBC, responding “Yup” when reporter Brian Schwartz asked him if the two had spoken about a replacement for Trump. “Have chatted with him, but working with him would be an exaggeration,” Kristol wrote.
Sacarmucci’s desire to see someone else replace Trump is not a secret. “He’s gotta be primaried, so we have to find somebody to primary him, and I think we will,” Scaramucci told Vanity Fair in an interview this week, though he declined to name names. “There’s gotta be somebody in the Republican Party that’s worried about 2024 and the identity of the Republican Party,” he added.
Sen. Ben Sasse (D-NE), retired Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) are at the top of Kristol’s preferred candidates list this time around. Trouble is, none of them has said a word about challenging Trump, who Gallup says currently enjoys 88% approval within his party, CNBC noted.
Media Darlings
Meanwhile, Scaramucci has been making the rounds of liberal media outlets eager to hear anti-Trump voices, especially ones that have been part of Trump’s administration, however brief their tenure.
Scaramucci jumped on the Trump-is-a-racist bandwagon in July after the president’s comments about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the far-left “squad” in the House. More recently, Scaramucci showed up on “Real Time with Bill Maher” to call the president’s recent actions “absolutely indefensible.”
Trump’s response to Scaramucci on Twitter was swift: “Anthony Scaramucci, who was quickly terminated (11 days) from a position that he was totally incapable of handling, 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.”
On Monday, Scaramucci appeared on CNN to say Trump was in mental decline and inciting hate through his Twitter posts because people were getting death threats after Trump tweeted about them. “He goes after individuals as the president of the United States on his Twitter account. Okay? Which incites hate, which incites death threats. I mean, at some point I think the people in my party will have to look at all this stop being anesthetized to it,” he said.
Sour Grapes?
Trump says that Scaramucci is attacking him because he realized that the investor couldn’t handle the White House job and because Trump stopped taking his calls after firing him. “He’s a nervous, neurotic wreck. He called so much, and I said, ‘Anthony, I’m sorry, I can’t do that, I can’t take you in,’” Trump recounted to reporters at a stop in New Jersey.
“‘You gotta stop all these phone calls, too many calls Anthony,’” Trump continued. “And I wouldn’t take his calls and lo and behold now he feels differently.”
Scaramucci has even gone so far as to say that he thinks Trump will exit the race because of negative polling showing that he can’t win re-election. “He’s gonna drop out of the race because it’s gonna become very clear,” Scaramucci told Vanity Fair. “Okay, it’ll be March of 2020. He’ll likely drop out by March of 2020. It’s gonna become very clear that it’s impossible for him to win.”
I don’t know how seriously we should take someone who couldn’t last two weeks in Trump’s administration and who thinks Trump will “turn on everyone” including the American people because that’s what he thinks Trump did to him.