Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci leaked a goofy communications strategy memo filled with platitudes and strategies that could actually endanger President Donald Trump’s reelection just a day after he vowed to go “dark,” again putting the “spotlight” on himself and the one-man “The Scaramucci Show.”
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle said Scaramucci is the type of person who tries to fake it until he makes it, and this document leaked on Wednesday, curiously written a week after he was hired (did he not have a plan when he was applying for the job?), reads like something a faker wrote. The memo was written three days after his infamously profane interview with the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in which he cursed out former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and accused White House Chief Strategist Steve K. Bannon of giving himself blowjobs.
The memo, first leaked to pro-Trump Twitter sensation Mike Cernovich and then published by left-wing BuzzFeed, potentially endangers Trump’s presidency, showing Chief of Staff John Kelly may have been wise to get rid of Scaramucci.
The Mooch advises Trump, in the leaked memo, to own the economy right now. For some reason, Scaramucci, the Wall Street financier, thinks Trump should buy high and potentially own low. He writes that “‘it’s the economy, stupid’ should be ‘it’s the Trump economy.’”
“The media (and the voters) will make POTUS own the economy (which is doing very well) if it goes the other way, so he should own it now. Comms needs to emphasis the economy early and often,” he writes.
This advice is irresponsible and borders on malpractice. By going all-in and explicitly owning the economy now, Trump would be completely boxed in “if it goes the other way,” and Trump’s critics would find any little thing that is wrong with the economy or a sector of the economy and blame it on the “Trump economy.” It would give Trump no wiggle room and create endless migraines for the communications team. Any bad news about the economy would immediately be followed by “Blame The Trump Economy” news cycles. So unless Scaramucci thought he was giving Trump this advice so he could have permanent job security because the communications team would always have to put out fires, having Trump own the economy now makes no sense. But for some reason, Scaramucci thinks Trump should own the economy before “it goes the other way.” Dizzying in its stupidity.
To his credit, he did put together a few good ideas—like having Trump take some questions from citizens on Facebook, finding better television surrogates who understand Trump’s nationalist agenda better than Scaramucci ever did, better anticipating what questions the media will ask, and canning saboteurs who try to undermine Trump, especially the West Wing globalists who leak to Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough.
He also writes about setting up a meeting with New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, with whom Trump had a skillful interview in which he masterfully went on and off the record in a way Scaramucci the amateur apparently did not know how to do with Lizza.
He suggests that the communications staff should “deescalate” tensions with the media and not brawl for Trump. That would presumably mean depriving Trump of seeing his favorite pit bull Dr. Sebastian Gorka giving anchors in the legacy media verbal beatdowns.
Scaramucci also apparently doesn’t know the difference between “every day” and “everyday,” which is something that a communications director should know.
“The growth in new jobs is life changing for every day Americans,” he writes. “Comms needs to bring a spotlight to these people/stories.”
He also proposes that Trump conduct “fireside chats with cabinet members” without realizing that such chats would get ridiculed and would not give the communications team the best bang for the buck. Those chats would be high on risk and low on reward.
Scaramucci now seems intent on taking “The Scaramucci Show” off Broadway. He will reportedly have a media event online on Friday afternoon to further explain his firing and profane comments to Lizza. He then will reportedly go “dark” until Labor Day.
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