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White House plotters working to 'eject' Trump, says former communications chief Anthony Scaramucci

‘The President is not a representative of the political establishment class, so for whatever reason the people have made a decision that they want to eject him,’ Mr Scaramucci says

Alexandra Wilts
Washington DC
Sunday 13 August 2017 14:32 BST
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Donald Trump’s former communications director has said there are people in Washington trying to topple the President.

Anthony Scaramucci, who was sacked last month after just 10 days on the job, said there are “elements” within the White House trying to “eject” Mr Trump.

“What happens in Washington... is the President is not a representative of the political establishment class, so for whatever reason the people have made a decision that they want to eject him,” Mr Scaramucci told ABC.

“I think there are elements inside of Washington, also inclusive in the White House, that are not necessarily abetting the President’s interests or his agenda.”

When asked to identify the individuals, he said he had already “named some names”.

He added that Mr Trump needed to bring in “more loyalists” to carry out his agenda.

During his brief time working for the President, Mr Scaramucci turned the White House upside down. His hiring led to the departures of both Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus, Mr Trump’s former press secretary and chief of staff, respectively.

Mr Scaramucci told New Yorker reporter Adam Lizza that Mr Priebus was a “paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac” and accused him of leaking information to journalists. The following day, Mr Trump announced on Twitter that he was replacing Mr Priebus with John Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security.

One of Mr Kelly's first tasks in his new role appears to have been removing Mr Scaramucci as communications director.

Mr Scaramucci told ABC on Sunday that he “obviously paid the consequences” for his profanity-laced call to Mr Lizza in which the ex-communications director also bashed White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon as well as Mr Priebus.

“For the record, I thought that was off the record,” Mr Scaramucci said, adding that Mr Lizza's decision to record the call was “a very deceitful thing that he did.”

Mr Lizza told CNN that Mr Scaramucci did know the conversation was “100 percent on the record.

When asked if he thought he deserved to be fired, Mr Scaramucci said, “well obviously I wished they would've given me a bar of soap and told me to wash my mouth out in the bathroom and move on.”

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