Jake Tapper says White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci is “100 percent” right that presidential appointees are trying to damage the Trump administration from within.
The host of CNN’s “The Lead” told viewers on Thursday that drama surrounding Mr. Scaramucci’s first week on the job should not detract from the substance of his message: Some members of President Trump’s team are trying to sink his agenda through leaks to the media.
“There are people inside the administration that think it is their job to save America from this president,” Mr. Scaramucci told the network. “That’s not their job. Their job is to inject the president into America.”
His message was, for all intents and purposes, lost in the news cycle when vulgar comments he made to The New Yorker were published. He called White House chief of staff Reince Priebus a “f—g paranoid schizophrenic” and used a sexual analogy to describe chief strategist Steve Bannon’s professional ambitions.
“Scaramucci is not wrong here,” Mr. Tapper said. “He’s 100 percent right — not about what the job of administration staffers are — their allegiance should be to the nation and to the Constitution, not to any specific president. [He’s right] about the fact that there are people in the Trump administration who, quote, ’think it is their job to save America from President Trump’ — many of them appointees of President Trump. […] Let’s take a moment to acknowledge and contemplate this very striking truth delivered by Mr. Scaramucci today.”
Mr. Tapper’s point echoes that of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who recently told listeners of “an elite membership of the establishment unifying to get rid of Donald Trump.”
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“The fight is not Republican versus Democrat,” Mr. Limbaugh said July 18. “The fight is Donald Trump and his cadre and you, the Trump base, versus the Washington establishment. It has always been that and nothing more. And, frankly, I think one of the problems has been that there aren’t enough people in the Trump White House who understand that that’s the way the table’s set.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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