News

Scaramucci: ‘Pretty obvious’ I don’t support Trump’s reelection bid

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said on Monday that it is “pretty obvious” that he does not support President Trump’s reelection. 

“The guy’s dissembling a little bit, and he’s sounding more and more nonsensical. We’re sort of anesthetized to it, and people inside of Washington are ‘Oh yeah, that’s just President Trump, just let him act like that,’ ” Scaramucci told CNN.

{mosads}“But you’re fracturing the institutions and all of the things that the country stands for, so that’s not worth the economic policies,” he added. “I’m a Republican, so I’m not switching parties to support a Democrat. I believe in the values and the policies of the Republican Party, but I’m now neutral on the president, and let’s see how he continues to act.”  

The comments come after Trump blasted Scaramucci in a tweet on Saturday, calling him “totally incapable of handling” his position in the White House and accusing him of knowing “very little about me.” 

The former aide later said the Republican Party should consider taking Trump off the top of their ticket in 2020.  

In an interview with Axios on Sunday, Scaramucci compared the president to Chernobyl, a Russian nuclear disaster. Scaramucci called Trump’s trip to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, in the wake of the two mass shootings in the cities a “total catastrophe” and one of the worst weeks of his presidency after none of the still-hospitalized patients in El Paso agreed to see Trump, and video footage was shared of the president touting the size his campaign rally in El Paso earlier this year.

“I think you have to consider a change at the top of the ticket when someone is acting like this,” he added.

Scaramucci on Monday also criticized Trump for his “reprehensible” and “divisive” rhetoric, going “after people personally” on Twitter, which “incites hate, incites death threats.” He also said “the nonsense from the president is not helping the country,” accusing the president of making “racially charged comments” and “divisive tweeting.”

“I got fired two years ago, and I’ve tried to stay very loyal to him and very loyal to the agenda because I think the policies are very, very good for the American people. But the rhetoric is so charged and so divisive that we have to all just take a step back now and say what are we doing actually,” Scaramucci said.

Scaramucci added that the president’s response to the shootings in El Paso and Dayton could cause a “groundswell” in the Republican Party. 

“Sound and reasonably minded men and women in the Republican Party will say wait a minute we can’t do this. He is giving people a license to hate, to provide a source of anger, to go after each other, and he does it on his Twitter account,” he continued.