Meeting the Mooch

When Anthony Scaramucci announced that he was writing a book about his time with Donald Trump, the joke was that it should be entitled ‘Ten Days That Shook the World’. This, he says, does him an injustice because he managed 11 days as White House communications director before being fired — after a lava flow of stories that seemed extraordinary even by Trumpian standards. But he remained loyal to the President, and has been speaking in his defence ever since. This book promises to reveal one of the deepest mysteries in American politics: how Trump’s mind works.

‘I’m almost done with the manuscript,’ he says, fresh from a meeting with his publishers in New York. ‘Obviously, my short stint in the White House won’t be a major drama. The book will be about the President’s personality. Almost like a disc-operating manual: how the President thinks, how he works, what he likes to do stylistically. About his negotiation style, trade policies, where he stands politically. And why he’s going to continue to beat the pants off of his political adversaries who still haven’t figured him out.’

Those who rail against Trump, he says, play straight into his hands: he loves to wind up his detractors so they lose their composure. He offers an example: a presidential tweet last week referring to costs being ‘bourne’ by the American taxpayer. ‘There are actually people in the media who think he doesn’t know how to spell the word “borne”. They don’t realise that he’s trying to light their hair on fire, he’s trying to incite them.’ They rise to the bait every time, he says. ‘When he says that “My button is bigger than your button and my button works”, they don’t appreciate the angle that he’s approaching them from.’

He sees this as Trump’s great gift, his superpower.