New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza recently revealed a conversation between himself and the newly appointed White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci. According to Lizza, Scaramucci reportedly called Reince Preibus a "paranoid schizophrenic" — and much, much more. The apparent conversation began when Lizza received a phone call from Scaramucci demanding to know who the "senior White House official" source was in Lizza's tweet about a dinner taking place at the White House.
The reported dinner was held for Scaramucci, the first lady, Sean Hannity, Fox News' Bill Shine, and Donald Trump himself. Lizza was curious about the purpose of such a gathering. Scaramucci, however, wasn't pleased. He demanded to know who leaked the information to Lizza. When Lizza said he could not tell Scaramucci, the communications director responded, "What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over."
From there on, Scaramucci reportedly zeroed in on White House Chief of Staff Preibus. "I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you," Scaramucci reportedly said, "Reince Priebus — if you want to leak something — he’ll be asked to resign very shortly." He went on to reportedly describe Preibus as "a f--king paranoid schizophrenic."
According to Lizza, Scaramucci also reportedly mock-voiced Preibus and said, "Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the f--king thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months."
This is not the first time Scaramucci has issued strong words against the subject of leaking information to the news media. On Fox News Sunday, Scaramucci said about leaking information, "It's not fair to the president, it's actually not fair to America or the people in the government." He also said, "I'm not going to be able to stop the leaks in the intergovernmental agencies and all that other stuff, that's a different ball of wax. But something is going on in the White House that the president does not like and we're going to fix it."
Preibus wasn't the only one on the apparent receiving end of Scaramucci's reported wrath. Steve Bannon, chief strategist for Trump, was also reportedly described in less-than-pleasant terms by Scaramucci. The communications director reportedly said, "I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c--k. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the f--king strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country."
Neither Preibus nor Bannon has made any public comments on the reportedly expletive-laden incident.
