Occasionally, facts trump fiction. Put differently: you can’t make this stuff up!
Barack Obama had a press secretary whose surname was “earnest.” His critics considered him anything but. Trump did Obama one better and named a White House communications director (who flamed out spectacularly after 11 days on the job) whose name mirrored the president’s own pugnacious proclivities.
Shortly after President Trump named Anthony Scaramucci as his new director of White House communications, an Italian friend called from Europe to make sure that I knew the origins of Scaramucci’s family name. In Italian, scaramucce (plural, with an “e,” not an “i”) means “petty fights” or “petty skirmishes.” Now that’s walking the talk.
For a young White House increasingly characterized by Medici-style backstabbing and infighting, it didn’t get any better than this. Except, perhaps, if Scaramucci had been a Soprano instead.
Mr. Scaramucci had a disastrous start – and a catastrophic finish. His first White House press room appearance on July 21 found him repeating how much he “loved” Donald Trump, no doubt, in part, because of their shared cultural backgrounds growing up in Queens and on Long Island. Such serial love fests, however, typically come from close family members.
The people Trump trusts the most in his chaotic White House are, in fact, his family members. Scaramucci’s genes ruled out Trump family membership, so Scaramucci (who once called Trump a hack) did the next best thing: he professed undying love and highlighted their similar temperaments. It is notable – and refreshing – that Scaramucci’s successor, General John Kelly, so far has not expressed his unrequited love for Donald Trump. He’s the new chief of staff, not a raving sycophant.
There was something clearly cultural at play in the Trump-Scaramucci saga. Similar backgrounds. Similar unplugged styles. Similar financial success. Similar cultivated outsider status. Scaramucci was all but crooning behind that podium, and that’s what got me thinking about music. Music can often reflect certain cultural affinities, much the way that “Saturday Night Fever” captured New York City’s 1970s vibe.
Tunes began running through my head. Was it Sinatra’s “My Way” or “New York, New York”? Alan Jackson’s “Gone Country” (“I’m a simple girl myself, grew up on Long Island”) didn’t help much with the cultural memes on display during Scaramucci’s debut. Moreover, we’re not talking about “simple” people here; Scaramucci ran a hedge fund, after all. Also, country music has never been that popular in Manhattan’s still Travolta-dominated world. Then it hit me: those Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. They explain everything. Cue to: “Who loves you pretty baby? Who’s gonna help you through the night?”
Or perhaps it’s “Streetfighter” or “Walk Like A Man”? Listen to the music and the lyrics of these songs and then watch Scaramucci’s opening performance. Wanna bet whether Trump and Scaramucci have seen “Jersey Boys”?
Trump chose Scaramucci to reduce the scaramucce emanating from this White House. But everything blew up: petty skirmishes became prime-time profanity-laden rants. During his first appearance on “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace,” Scaramucci announced his first priority: to end White House leaks. That’s retaliation, not better messaging. He was to be an enforcer, not a communicator. But the former hedge fund executive forgot to hedge. This time, Scaramucci lost his own unhedged bet that “New Yorker” reporter Ryan Lizza wouldn’t transcribe his crude tantrum.
Scaramucci’s world (like much of Donald Trump’s) is one of fantasy, not fact. During that first “briefing,” Scaramucci told the planet that President Trump “has some of the best political instincts in the world, perhaps in history.” Cue to the latest public opinion polls, all of which show Trump’s approval in the low to mid 30s, the lowest approval rating recorded for a president at this stage of his presidency.
If Scaramucci truly believes what he said about Trump’s political instincts, then Scaramucci’s communications skills were honed in Paris, at the Francois Hollande School of Political Communications. Readers may recall that the former French president late last year decided not to seek re-election when his popular approval reached a record low of 4 percent.
No White House can succeed in today’s complex communications environment without a consistent message that is also coherent, confident, and credible. Trump’s basic communications problem is that his only consistency is stepping all over his own message. Until he imposes discipline on that messaging, the president can expect more weeks of chaos and confusion. We’ll see what General Kelly can do.
The week of July 16, 2017, was supposed to focus on Senate action to repeal and replace Obamacare. Instead, Trump changed the focus by announcing three different approaches to Obamacare: repeal it, let it collapse, and repeal and replace it. Then he gave a meandering “New York Times” interview, out of which came the bizarre denunciation of his own Attorney General, former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. The Sessions recusal in the Russia probe wasn’t arbitrary: he did the right thing given his clear conflict of interest, a legal point lost on Trump who values loyalty over everything else. But here’s an important point for Trump to remember: loyalty will never in this nation trump the Constitution and the law.
When presidential messaging becomes erratic and presidential approval ratings keep falling, Americans tune out. They may have given Donald Trump a four-year contract to live in the White House, but once they start ignoring him, his presidency will be finished. Just ask Jimmy Carter, or Francois Hollande.
Who knows how all of this is going to play out? I certainly don’t. Anthony Scaramucci may be gone for now, but it’s by no means clear if the scaramucce have stopped at this White House.
Charles Kolb served as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy from 1990-1992 in the George H.W. Bush White House. He was president of the French-American Foundation – United States from 2012-2014 and president of the Committee for Economic Development from 1997-2012.