While Republicans in the Senate debated a controversial, “skinny” health care bill that would repeal key parts of Obamacare and potentially strip millions of Americans of their insurance coverage, cable news seemed to be focusing on a whole other story: venomous profanity coming from a top White House aide.
Less than a week after he was appointed White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci sparked a media furor on Thursday after unleashing a profane, unhinged rant against top Trump administration aides in an interview with The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. In the phone call, which Scaramucci initiated, he threatened to fire the entire White House communications staff, called chief of staff Reince Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic” and said chief strategist Steve Bannon was trying to build his “own brand off the fucking strength of the president.”
Lizza wrote about the interaction shortly after Scaramucci tweeted (and then deleted) a missive in which he appeared to blame White House leaks on Priebus, themselves a series of newsworthy and inflammatory events. But some were exasperated that cable networks ― including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News ― seemed to devote more time to Scaramucci’s comments than to the health care battle raging in Congress.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked the networks to “stop covering Scaramucci for a sec” and instead focus on the “REAL BREAKING NEWS affecting millions of Americans.”
Others on Twitter, including Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), expressed similar frustration, while some praised public broadcasters like C-SPAN, which had been covering the vote all night.