Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s new communications director, deletes old tweets to avoid ‘distraction’

Anthony Scaramucci, President Trump’s newly appointed communications director, has begun purging his Twitter account of old tweets that don’t jive with the administration’s agenda.

“Full transparency: I’m deleting old tweets. Past views evolved & shouldn’t be a distraction. I serve @POTUS agenda & that’s all that matters,” Mr. Scaramucci tweeted Saturday afternoon, hardly 24 hours after the New York financier became the latest addition to the Trump administration’s press team amid a West Wing shake-up that resulted in former spokesman Sean Spicer’s resignation Friday.

Mr. Scaramucci did not immediately disclose which social media posts would be deleted. A couple of tweets from 2012 in which he advocated “common sense” gun laws and complimented Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s former campaign rival, were among the posts no longer available within hours of his announcement, however.

“We (the USA) has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s guns. Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls,” Mr. Scaramucci tweeted August 6, 2012.

“I hope she runs, she is incredibly competent,” he said of Mrs. Clinton four months earlier, roughly three years before Mr. Trump tossed his hat into the 2016 race and formally challenged the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee.

Both tweets garnered attention after Mr. Scaramucci’s appointment Friday and were subsequently deleted.

In another tweet, dated March 11, 2016, Mr. Scaramucci said it’s possible “to combat climate change without crippling the economy,” and that “the fact many people still believe [climate change] is a hoax is disheartening.” That tweet too has since been deleted.

Mr. Scaramucci was named White House communications director early Friday, assuming a role that has been vacant since Mike Dubke’s departure in May. Mr. Spicer resigned moments later “to give the President and the new team a clean slate,” he told CNN.

Mr. Scaramucci spoke critically of Mr. Trump in the past, and he acknowledged Friday that the president hired him fully aware of his earlier remarks.

“One of the biggest mistakes I made, because I was an inexperienced person in the world of politics. I was supporting another candidate. I should have never said that about him,” Mr. Scaramucci said of his previous comments.

“I love the president and I’m very, very loyal to the president. And I love the mission that the president has,” Mr. Scaramucci said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.