President Donald J. Trump removed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci from his post after only 11 days on the job, a move that precipitated by his public feud with former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus last week and is poised to bring a sense of discipline to the West Wing under the new chief of staff.
In the latest episode of an ensuing White House drama, President Trump mostly heeded an advice from new Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former four-star general, to fire Mr. Scaramucci who found himself at the center of media attention following his profanity-laced tirades against Mr. Priebus.
The decision was made public by the White House press secretary on Monday after The New York Times and Associated Press, citing officials, first reported about the sacking of the former New York financier.
“Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House Communications Director. Mr. Scaramucci felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team. We wish him all the best,” White House said in a statement.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Scaramucci had called Mr. Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoic,” in a phone call with The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. Mr. Scaramucci also publicly accused Mr. Priebus of leaking information. The former communications director failed to mention that his talk with Mr. Lizza was off-the-record.
The decision came on Mr. Kelly’s first day as the Chief of Staff and is viewed as part of his efforts to bring order and discipline to the West Wing. Removal of Mr. Scaramucci reflected an early sign that the new Chief of Staff would try to assert authority at the White House.
Mrs. Sanders said on Monday Mr. Kelly “has the full authority to carry out business as he sees fit.” From now on, all White House staff will report to Mr. Kelly, including several of the big personalities such as the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
To play down concerns that White House administration is falling apart, Mr. Trump tweeted on Monday that there was no chaos at the White House. His tweet stood out as an irony since the Mr. Trump set the record for having the shortest-lived National Security Adviser (24 days), Chief of Staff (200 days) and Communications Director (10 days).