Liberal Forum

With Trump’s ‘Green Light,’ Scaramucci Declares Total War on ‘Paranoid Schizophrenic’ Reince Priebus

President Donald Trump has not only blessed efforts by his new communications director Anthony Scaramucci to wage a battle against chief of staff Reince Priebus, he’s actively egging on the very public and painful feud.

The ante was upped Thursday evening after a profanity-laced tirade was published in the New Yorker in which Scaramucci raged against Priebus and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and promised to fire the communications staff if it helped to root out leaks.

White House officials and outside allies say the president is revelling in Scaramucci’s campaign against Priebus—undertaken through cable news appearances and a billow of tweets, some of which were subsequently deleted—and is thrilled to see a top staffer placing a publicly bombastic emphasis on White House leaks to the press, which consistently infuriate the president.

“The president specifically gave [Scaramucci] the green light to go after Reince”—on-air if necessary—one White House adviser told The Daily Beast, citing conversations with President Trump. Scaramucci himself claimed that he had secured Trump’s “blessing” for his words and actions in a phone call with the president prior to a Thursday morning CNN interview.

The “president is not concerned with Reince’s feelings,” the source added.

However, Trump has no interest in personally firing Priebus at this time, preferring to delegate abuse of his own chief of staff—who Trump has been frustrated with for months—to his new comms czar nicknamed “The Mooch.”