Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said Monday he is “now neutral on” President Trump after his Sunday statement calling for Republicans to pick a different presidential candidate for 2020.
“I’m a Republican so I’’m not switching parties to support a Democrat,” Mr. Scaramucci told CNN’s “New Day.” “I believe in the values and the policies of the Republican Party, but I’m now neutral on the president. We’ll see how he continues to act.”
But he added, Mr. Trump is “a pernicious evil in trying to divide the country.”
“The guy is actually dissembling a bit, and he’s sounding more and more nonsensical and, you know, we’re sort of amnestied to it and people inside of Washington [say], ’Oh yeah, that’s just President Trump, just let him act like that,’ but you know you’re fracturing the institutions and all the things the country stands for.
“That’s not worth the economic policies. That’s not worth the GDP growth which, by the way, is slowing down and the stock market’s exactly where it was a year ago, and I do think you have a bigger problem with the trade war than people think right now,” he said.
Mr. Scaramucci, who only served in The White House for 11 days, criticized the president on CNN Friday after his visits to the grieving areas of two recent mass shootings.
Mr. Scaramucci called it a “catastrophe” and agreed Mr. Trump’s rhetoric could have possibly contributed to one of the shootings in El Paso, Texas.
The president then blasted him on Saturday, saying Mr. Scaramucci was “totally incapable of handling” White House communications and said, “he knows very little about me.”
Mr. Scaramucci followed by telling Axios Sunday the U.S. is in the early stages of “melting down” under Mr. Trump’s leadership, and Republicans have to “replace the top of the ticket in 2020.”
The former communications director said Monday he’ll accept the notion he’s only speaking out against the president after being doxxed on Twitter.
Mr. Scaramucci cited it as his turning point in realizing the president cannot take his criticisms despite his two years of loyalty.
“There’s something wrong with the guy as a leader if he cannot take constructive criticism or advice from people that have been super loyal to him. It tells you there probably is not a lot of listening going on in the White House.”
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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