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Arrivederci, Mooch - The story of Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony Scaramucci was the shortest-serving White House communications director in history. What went wrong?

In the end, the Mooch got stabbed in the back.

Before even the late-night comedians could hone their impressions of the fast-talking, "front-stabbing" man from Long Island, before even his official start date as White House director of communications, Anthony Scaramucci felt the knife go in.

John Kelly, President Trump's new White House chief of staff, called Mr Scaramucci into his office on Monday morning and, with the blessing of the president, cut him loose, 10 short days after he was given the job. Mr Scaramucci reportedly tried to phone Mr Trump, but the boss wasn't available.

It was all just coming together for Mr Scaramucci. After six months on the outside, blocked by White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, he had finally got the nod - director of communications, reporting directly to the president.

A Wall Street hot-shot who graduated straight from Harvard law to Goldman Sachs and went on to start his own hedge fund, Mr Scaramucci was never short on ambition. "The only kid in high school who read the New York Times every Sunday," said one former classmate.

Earlier this year, to smooth his path to the White House, Mr Scaramucci announced plans to sell his controlling $80m (£61m) stake in hedge fund SkyBridge Capital, and two weeks ago he pruned his Twitter history of inconvenient opinions on gun control, gay marriage and climate change.

"Full transparency: I'm deleting my old tweets," he wrote, apparently without irony.

White House staff
REUTERS
On the road with the Trump team, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski (R)
 

On Friday 21 July, Mr Scaramucci gave his first press conference. He paid tribute to outgoing press secretary Sean Spicer, who elected to resign rather than serve under his new boss. Mr Spicer was Mr Scaramucci's first scalp, and the tribute could not have been more Mooch. "I wish him well and I hope he goes on to make a tremendous amount of money," he said.

The first few days were a whirlwind: a tour of the morning shows on Sunday, warning White House leakers that their days were numbered; a trip aboard Air Force One on Monday, while his estranged wife Deidre Ball gave birth to their second child in New York; a dinner at the White House on Wednesday with the president, Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox News executive Bill Shine, the details of which were immediately leaked to the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza.

Then early on Thursday morning, Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo, the hosts of CNN's New Day programme were on the line with Mr Lizza discussing the leak when they got an unexpected call from a listener.

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Source: BBC News:

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