Scaramucci Out at White House After Only 11 Days, Breaking Record
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening. Thanks for joining. We begin tonight, keeping them honest, with another claim by the president of the United States and the White House that it's simply hard to believe -- hard to believe because it stands in stark contrast to what all of us can see with our own eyes. On this day which Anthony Scaramucci, the newly appointed White House communications director who called himself the Mooch, was escorted off White House property after being let go just 11 days after he started, the president tweeted to take credit for the stock market and other things, insisting that there is, quote, no White House chaos. No chaos whatsoever. Nothing to see here, folks. And that is the message that Sarah Huckabee Sanders continued to parrot this afternoon.</s>REPORTER: The president announced on Twitter that there's no chaos at the White House. How would you describe what has happened over the course of the past 10 days? Obviously, you will agree with your boss, the president, that there's no chaos. But how do you explain that not to be the case?</s>SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think it's simple. I've said it before. If you want to see chaos, come to my house with three preschoolers. This doesn't hold a candle to that.</s>COOPER: Clearly, that was meant to be a charming deflection, but it is a deflection nonetheless. The only thing you can compare the White House to make it seemed unchaotic is a house full of preschoolers, it's not a great comparison. Granted every White House staff changes, every president goes through a period of adjustment, but not every president publicly undercuts his own spokesman, his own chief of staff, not to mention his own attorney general and hires a communications director with no communications experience, who then threatens to fire everyone, and calls the chief of staff an F-ing paranoid schizophrenic, and says one of the president's own advisers is trying to blank his own blank, all of which he said to a reporter. Then calls in to CNN a few hours later, lies about what he said to the reporter the night before, says he and the president are best bros, and he and the guy who he just called an F-ing paranoid schizophrenic are also bros in a biblical sense.</s>ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: As you know from the Italian expression, the fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don't stink, OK? And that's me and the president. I don't like the activity that's going on in the White House. I don't like what they're doing to my friend. I don't like what they're doing to the president of the United States, or their fellow colleagues in the West Wing. Now, if you want to talk about the staff, we have had odds, we have had differences. When I said we're brothers from the podium, that's because we're rough on each other. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel.</s>COOPER: That was Thursday. Today is Monday. And as Peter Baker of "The New York Times" points out, turns out neither Cain nor Abel made it. Scaramucci is just the latest from this administration who's out: Sally Yates fired, Michael Flynn forced to resigned, James fired, Mike Dubke resigned, Sean Spicer resigned in opposition to Scaramucci's appointment, Reince Priebus resigned, and now, Scaramucci resigned the same day the president's new chief of staff, John Kelly, was sworn in. But the president says none of that is chaotic. In just 11 days, Spicer, Priebus and Scaramucci are out. That's even quicker that it happened on "The Apprentice" and that show was chaotic. If you're inclined to ignore the facts and take the president's word on Twitter that the chaos isn't chaos, and you have to take his Twitter word on everything. In February of 2016, quote, Ted Cruz does not have the right temperament to be president. Look at the way he totally panicked and firing his director of comm, communications. Bad. And from January 2012, three chiefs of staff in less than three years of being president, part of the reason why Barack Obama can't manage to pass his agenda. Old Trump tweets are like greeting cards. There's one for every occasion, an indication of another day of disorder and confusion at the White House, another word for which is chaos. Let's get more now from Jim Acosta at the White House with new details on the end of the era of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. Jim, I'm not sure you can say 11 days is an era. But the idea that there's no White House chaos, that's what the president tweeted. But the events of the last couple of weeks seem to tell a different story. What is the mood in the White House tonight?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, as it turns out, the Mooch might have been a bit too much. You could say. And as for the president's tweet that there's no chaos going on here at the White House, this White House is the picture of chaos. That is where things stand right now. To have a communications director who is supposed to be in charge of messaging for the administration out after only ten days on the job, that breaks some speed records that have never been seen here in Washington before for a position of that type. And so, clearly, this is a problem for this White House, and that is why he was very eager to bring in John Kelly, the retired general, as his new chief of staff. We were told time again not only by Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the podium today, but confidentially through White House sources that Kelly intends to bring order to this very disorderly situation inside the White House. First and foremost, people are not going to be able to walk into the West Wing we're told and just talking to the president. They're going to have to go through John Kelly. That is a privilege that Reince Priebus did not have. He could not keep the voices from coming into the White House and whispering into the president's ear from all sorts of different directions. And that certainly undermined Reince Priebus. Whether John Kelly can keep that kind of order and maintain that type of order, I think that is going to be a very tall ask, even for a general.</s>COOPER: There are also new details emerging about how the Scaramucci dismissal transpired. What do we know at this point?</s>ACOSTA: Well, from what we understand last week, you know, we were hearing from sources that the president was almost giving Scaramucci an attaboy. You know, people were calling Scaramucci the mini me, or the mini Mooch for President Trump, because of the way he was dressing down Reince Priebus, Somebody that the president has obviously lost confidence in, lost patience with. But slowly but surely from what we understand from talking to sources, the president viewed these headlining about Scaramucci as being very negative, because not only were they overshadowing things going on here at the White House, they were overshadowing the president of the United States himself. And from what we understand from talking to sources, Scaramucci talked to John Kelly about this yesterday. But it wasn't until after John Kelly was sworn in at the White House that the news was given to Scaramucci that he was out and that he had to essentially leave immediately. This was an immediate termination of his job over here at the White House. And when you talk to people close to Scaramucci, they say he's going show up at the Export/Import Bank tomorrow. That's another job he was with the administration. But Sarah Huckabee Sanders says, no, no, he's leaving the administration. So, we're hearing two different stories here in terms of just how out Scaramucci is tonight.</s>COOPER: And for a person who also talks a lot about loyalty, this is an extraordinary development. You know, Scaramucci gave up, sold his company and thought he was going to get a job in the White House a long time ago, was held off, finally got this job, and to be out after so long, when last week, I mean, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, from the podium was saying the president likes, you know, I can't remember the exact phrase, an active dialogue, or basically seemed to praise Scaramucci for going after Priebus in such a public way.</s>ACOSTA: That's right. And that's why this is going to be such a huge test, Anderson, for John Kelly. You know, this is supposed to be somebody who is going to come in and put discipline in a system that's been very undisciplined. But that is a very un-Trump-like scenario, that John Kelly is trying to bring to this White House. Remember, and you know this all too well, Anderson. Donald Trump seizes -- he seems to revel in this sort of disorganized chaos, he feels like at the end of the day, it results in better decision making on his part, whereas much of the rest of the world just sees a White House in chaos and doesn't believe that to be the case at all. The other question is whether or not, you know, so much of the problems that are generated by this White House are generated by the president's smartphone, when he's tapping out these tweets that just sort of send Washington into a tailspin from time to time, almost on a daily basis. So, the question is for John Kelly, not only can he get the White House under control and bring order to a very disorderly situation. Can he get his hands on that phone? That might be another key to his future here as a chief of staff, Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right. Jim Acosta -- Jim, thanks. Joining me now is Ryan Lizza, CNN political commentator and "New Yorker" reporter and once referred late night Scaramucci phone call recipient. Ryan, to the extent that anything about Scaramucci could surprise you at this point, did this surprise you?</s>RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It surprised me a little bit, because I thought we had the answer to -- you know, when people were asking me, what did you think was going to happen after that interview when it was published, is Scaramucci going to be fired? And I would say, he's either going to be fired or promoted. You just never know with Donald Trump. We -- I thought we had the answer when Priebus was forced out, which seems like last month, but I guess it was just last week. I thought that was Trump saying I have no problem with what Scaramucci said. And it's the chief of staff that needs to change, and I want to keep him in this position. What obviously changed is that John Kelly knows a thing or two about how to be an effective chief of staff, and it does not take a rocket scientist to know that if you want to be an effective chief of staff at the White House, you can't have super empowered freelance senior aides who report to the president and not to you running one of the most important offices in the White House, the communications office. So, it shows that Trump is giving John Kelly enormous latitude. I think Trump likes Scaramucci. I think they had a real relationship. So I bet this was not an easy decision for Trump to do this. But it's -- for Kelly, it's a pretty important sign that he was able to exercise control, and it's a betrayal of Scaramucci, to be honest, right? Trump told him he could report to the president. The new guy comes in and says, no, that's not good, and he got rid of the old guy.</s>COOPER: Yes. I mean, it's also going to be interesting to see whether Scaramucci stays in President Trump's orbit, whether officially or unofficially, whether he's made himself persona non grata. I mean, the whole notion that it wasn't what he said but that he was getting so much attention as we know from the past, you know, when President Trump said to Comey, you know, you're getting more famous or you're more famous than I am right now.</s>LIZZA: Yes.</s>COOPER: You know, that was not a good sign for the future of Jim Comey.</s>LIZZA: I reported this in a piece tonight in newyorker.com. Even before I published my article, I had it on very good authority that there was tension between Scaramucci and Trump, and he was on a little bit of thin ice even before that because of the last -- because of his first week, even absent the comments to me, he was pretty out there. So, there were a lot of moving parts in the last week, right? The first priority for Trump was finding a new chief of staff. But I think he realized when he had the new chief of staff that the move he made with Scaramucci didn't make sense in the new order. And to answer that question, which is a good question, Anderson, about whether he sticks around, you know, Trump advisers have a history of -- even after they leave the official capacity, official, you know, working relationship of remaining loyal, working for Trump, speaking on his behalf, going to bat for him, sometimes stirring the pot. Think of people like Sam Nunberg and Roger Stone --</s>COOPER: Corey Lewandowski.</s>LIZZA: And even Scaramucci. What's that?</s>COOPER: Corey Lewandowski. I mean --</s>LIZZA: Corey Lewandowski, and even Scaramucci, who remember, look, this guy, you know, he was in a very strange position where he sold a pretty expensive company, and then was denied the job. So, he was really left out to hang for a while. And yet was at least loyal to Trump through that whole period, you know? So, it's funny, these former Trump advisers tend to stick around and look for that second shot at serving Trump.</s>COOPER: Yes. Ryan, stay with us. I want to bring in the rest of my panel: Gloria Borger, Jeffrey Lord, Bakari Sellers, David Chalian. Gloria, I mean, if this is not chaos in the West Wing, what is?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: It is. It's chaos.</s>COOPER: It may not -- to me, I'm wondering if it may not feel like chaos for President Trump, because he -- I think this is how he operates. He's used to it. But I'm sure for everybody else around, he's like the eye of the hurricane.</s>BORGER: And I think to General Kelly, it probably felt like chaos. And I'd like to have been privy to the conversation that the general had with the president before he decided to take this job, because when you wear four stars on your shoulder, you're used to chain of command. And I think that Kelly saw what Scaramucci -- let's put the vulgarity and all that with Ryan Lizza aside. Let's just talk about what Scaramucci said. He threatened to fire people, and he talked about a direct line to the president. And I think that was pretty much untenable. And I was told by a source today who spoke with the president that he believed Scaramucci was grandstanding. That was the word that was used to me. Remember, Trump called Comey a showboat. He doesn't like that. He doesn't like that. And this source said to me, who spoke with the president, with this president, you end up in the cheap seats in center field when that happens. And so, I think that was one strike against him. And then Kelly comes in and says, look, this is untenable, and we can't operate this way. And this source also said that Kelly told him he had to go.</s>COOPER: David Chalian, I mean, there could be multiple things that are true, that it's a situation where General Kelly didn't think Scaramucci was right for the job or appropriate, and President Trump was thinking Scaramucci was getting too much attention.</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Without a doubt. I think both things are probably true here. And we know that the president, while he may not have found the comments to Ryan in "The New Yorker" completely outrageous, he may have actually thought that they were accomplishing the goal of getting Reince sort of needled out of there. We know that the president doesn't like it with the blowback. It's the blowback that he no longer thought was appropriate, right? Once he saw the way those comments were playing over the weekend, even if it wasn't a John Kelly White House, it was very possible that the president did not like that Scaramucci ended up with all this blowback that did not reflect well on the president. At the end of the day, if Donald Trump thought Anthony Scaramucci was doing good for his image right now, Scaramucci would still be there, even with wanting to give John Kelly this latitude to set the discipline. That is -- Scaramucci lost the confidence of the president.</s>COOPER: Jeffrey, can one still argue -- I mean, you know, the whole thing about Donald Trump during the election was that he hires the best people and he knows how to run organizations and he's a great manager. I mean, is any of that believable still?</s>JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure.</s>COOPER: I mean, clearly, to his base, I guess it is.</s>LORD: Right.</s>COOPER: But do the events of the last six months with all the people that have come and gone, you really still argue he's a great, great manager?</s>LORD: Anderson, I just think that these chaos stories, and we've talked about this before., and I've looked and there's all these stories about everybody from Obama back to Reagan, about how their administration at some point is in chaos?</s>COOPER: Do you know of any administration in which the attorney general has been ridiculed and mocked by the president and criticized by the president, not fired but still at the same time that Sean Spicer is gone. [20:15:021] Sally Yates is gone. General Flynn is gone. Scaramucci is gone.</s>COOPER: Yes, I mean --</s>LORD: I mean, every president is different. I mean, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. This is why people put him there in the first place. And</s>I -- COOPER: People put him there to be a great manager and hire great people.</s>LORD: Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone in Pennsylvania at the summit diner who said, speaking of media and all this kind of thing, I don't care about this stuff. I care about North Korea. This is a media fixation. For heaven's sakes, move on. There are people out there, you know, in a serious situation in North Korea, there's Obamacare, et cetera, et cetera, that's what we should be focused about.</s>COOPER: It's a serious situation in North Korea, in which the president is tweeting about attacking - - saying, being critical of China in a tweet. Is that responsible? I mean, is that how foreign policy is done now?</s>LORD: Well, I think in the modern world, presidents are going to be tweeting. He's the first. He won't be the last.</s>COOPER: Bakari?</s>BORGER: But the question is -- well --</s>COOPER: Yes.</s>BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I know -- I think what we're looking at, and this is what Jeb Bush said, this is what Hillary Clinton said, this is what Mitt Romney said, all of the people that Donald Trump dispatched of, give him credit for that, but they all questioned his temperament. Because what we're seeing is basically "The Apprentice", with the democracy at stake. I mean, this is not -- he's treating Reince Priebus, he's treating Sean Spicer like they're Gary Busey or Lil' John, and you just simply cannot do that, because we do have real life issues. We do North Korea. We do have to wonder what is China going to do in our efforts to help curtail North Korea getting a nuclear weapon. We have these real life issues. But when you're looking at this White House, this is more than chaos. And for me, sometimes on Twitter and social media, you get a good chuckle out of it. You see the irony in Scaramucci talking big one day and then 11 days later being fired. I don't even think you can get a severance in 11 days. We see all of these things. But when you take a step back, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to everyone who looks at us as a global leader. It lowers our global standing. And I think that someone needs to -- and hopefully is General Kelly, I don't think it can be, but this is the way Donald Trump operates, but hopefully someone can rein him in. One of the things that General Kelly will not be able to do is he is not going to be able to control this out of control temperament that the 45th president has. No one has been able to do it. The only people who can talk to him are his family. General Kelly is not that. So Godspeed, but we need --</s>BORGER: But maybe he can get the White House staff on one page, because if he can do that and get them all on one page, there will be less leaking, they'll be more organization, and I think the president will be a lot happier.</s>CHALIAN: But, Jeffrey, don't you think a well-oiled, well-run West Wing is better prepared to deal with North Korea and other challenges?</s>LORD: Sure, sure. All I'm trying to say, Jack Koehler. I don't know how many people here remember Jack Koehler, White House communications director for Ronald Reagan for one week and out. I mean --</s>SELLERS: He was a Nazi though. That's why he was out because he got out that he is Nazi as a child.</s>LORD: He was 10 years old. He was 10 years old.</s>COOPER: I know you can point to one or two people here, but --</s>LORD: In terms of the larger Reagan administration, that's not part of the legacy, right?</s>COOPER: But this is a lot of people who have been filtering through. I mean, it's like there's a revolving door. We've got to take a quick break. We'll continue the discussion after the break. We have to remind you of what the White House said about Scaramucci's profane phone calls last week versus today. This story has shifted. And later, new reporting about new Chief of Staff John Kelly's reaction to the firing of James Comey. Kelly was firmly on Comey's side apparently. Details on that ahead.