Thread: Spicer resigns as White House press secretary amid Team Trump shakeup

BREAKING NEWS
Spicer resigns as White House press secretary amid Team Trump shakeup

Spicer resigns from White House team, sources say

Published July 21, 2017 Fox News



White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned Friday over the hiring of a new top communications aide, sources confirmed, marking a major shakeup in the president's press shop at an already tumultuous time.

Spicer's departure was confirmed just moments after President Trump met with the man being tapped for White House communications director, Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci.

Speculation about Spicer's status with the White House has run rampant for months, but one source described the appointment of Scaramucci as the deciding factor.

Spicer originally was supposed to lead a newly restructured communications operation. Under that structure, the communications director would report to him -- which may have caused a conflict with Scaramucci.

While Spicer for the opening months of the Trump presidency served as the face of the administration, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in recent weeks has taken the lead on many daily press briefings -- which are mostly held off camera and no longer televised live.

Spicer's abrupt exit came on a busy day for changes in Trump's inner circle.

News broke overnight on the resignation of Mark Corallo, who had been the lead spokesman on behalf of Trump’s long-time personal attorney Marc Kasowitz and the legal team. Corallo, who was previously a spokesman for the Justice Department, reportedly objected to public criticisms of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. His resignation comes days after Trump told The New York Times that he didn’t want Mueller investigating Trump family business ties outside the Russia scope.

Kasowitz, meanwhile, is stepping back to take a lower-profile role.

A source said Kasowitz will continue to give his input and guidance to the president, as well as all members of the outside counsel.

Kasowitz was originally summoned to help assemble and launch an outside counsel team with the president’s confidence. According to a source close to Kasowitz, he instructed Jay Sekulow to handle media appearances, John Dowd to work as a D.C. criminal lawyer, and Ty Cobb to handle the White House.

Meanwhile, Scaramucci, who supported Trump during the general election, is expected to fill the White House role that has remained vacant since Mike Dubke's resignation in May.

Spicer's departure marks the end of a rocky tenure in which the president's top spokesman at times struggled to keep pace with Trump's sometimes-chaotic leadership style -- and a swirl of controversies.

During the 2016 election cycle, Spicer was the chief strategist and communications director of the Republican National Committee. He later came to the White House along with Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman who is now Trump's chief of staff.

Spicer hasn’t had the rosiest relationship with the media since joining the White House. He’s clashed with reporters over “fake news” and said repeatedly the president was fed up with news reports that were “patently false.”

In February, he came under fire for barring reporters from several media outlets from participating in a scheduled press briefing.

His prickly relationship with the press was widely mocked on "Saturday Night Live" with Melissa McCarthy playing Spicer.

Spicer’s resignation comes as the president tries to move past the growing Russia controversy.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...urces-say.html

I like Spicer but I think the change to Anthony Scaramucci is a great move. I've watched him as an outside spokesman and he's wonderful, he'll be a terrific communications director for the White House.

Sean Spicer resigns as White House press secretary, calls Scaramucci hire a mistake

By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Friday, July 21, 2017

In another White House staff shakeup, President Trump appointed friend and New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as his communications director Friday, a move that prompted press secretary Sean Spicer to resign.

Mr. Trump offered Mr. Scaramucci the job Friday morning and asked Mr. Spicer to stay on. But Mr. Spicer, who along with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and presidential counselor Steve Bannon had argued against the selection of Mr. Scaramucci, decided to resign to allow the new communications team to “start with a clean slate,” colleagues said.

Mr. Scaramucci, a Trump loyalist whom the president calls “the Italian kid,” was introduced to the media and the public Friday afternoon in the White House press room. He said the White House needs to do a better job of promoting Mr. Trump’s agenda.

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SEE ALSO: Anthony Scaramucci meets the press; Sarah Huckabee Sanders promoted

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“I think there’s been at times a disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president, and the way some of you [journalists] perhaps see the president,” Mr. Scaramucci said.

“And I certainly see the American people probably see the president the way I do. But we want to get that message out there.”

The shakeup in the communications team came less than 24 hours after Mr. Trump also made changes in his legal team handling the response to Russia investigations. Lead attorney Marc Kasowitz was demoted, and legal team spokesman Mark Corallo departed.

The hiring of Mr. Scaramucci is also viewed as a blow to Mr. Priebus, who was an important ally of Mr. Spicer and had brought him to the White House from the Republican National Committee.

Glossing over the internal dissent over the communications staff changes, Mr. Scaramucci praised Mr. Spicer as “a true American patriot.”

“I would love to have Sean here. Sean decided that he thought it would be better to go,” he said. “This is obviously a difficult situation to be in, and I applaud his efforts here. And I love the guy. And I wish him well.”

He said there was “no friction” between him and Mr. Priebus.

“We are a little bit like brothers, where we rough each other up once in a while, which is totally normal for brothers,” he said. “But he’s a dear friend. He brought me into the political system.”

Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was promoted to press secretary. Mr. Spicer said he will stay on until the end of August.

Mr. Scaramucci, who has been a prominent TV talking head on behalf of Mr. Trump, is expected to serve a major role in defending Mr. Trump on television but not to conduct daily press briefings. He is the founder of the global investment firm SkyBridge Capital and is a Fox News contributor.

He dismissed concerns about a White House “under siege” from investigations over possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia.

“The president’s a winner, OK?” Mr. Scaramucci said.

“And what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a lot of winning.”

Mr. Spicer had been largely sidelined from the press secretary’s role in recent weeks, also serving as communications director as Mrs. Sanders took over the job of daily press interactions. Sources in the administration said Mr. Spicer was balking at having Mr. Scaramucci, who has no real Washington experience, in a position over him.

Another source close to the White House said presidential daughter Ivanka Trump had been pushing for Mr. Scaramucci’s appointment against the wishes of other top West Wing advisers, including Mr. Priebus and Mr. Bannon.

Mr. Trump has been searching since the start of his presidency for surrogates who can aggressively defend him and his policies, especially on camera, a role that Mr. Spicer has moved away from.

Mr. Spicer held what was widely considered the most difficult job in the White House, with the role of speaking for a president who believes he is his own best spokesman.

He got off to the most contentious start possible with the press, sent out by the president to harangue reporters on the second day of the new administration about what Mr. Trump believed was unfair coverage of the crowd size at his inauguration.

In the early weeks of the presidency, Mr. Spicer’s televised daily briefings with the press got high ratings in an often confrontational atmosphere, and Mr. Trump praised his press secretary. But as the weeks wore on, the president realized that the high ratings were fueled mostly by cable TV viewers opposed to him and his policies.

Until Friday, the White House hadn’t held a televised press briefing since June 29.

One source familiar with the White House press operations said Mr. Trump wanted to “help out” Mr. Scaramucci, who is also known as “Mooch,” by giving him a White House job. But Mr. Trump is also said to favor Mr. Scaramucci’s combative style in TV interviews and his vocal defense of the president.

Earlier this year, Mr. Scaramucci struck a multimillion-dollar deal to exit his investment firm, selling part of his interest to a little-known company, RON Transatlantic EG.

White House press staffers gave Mr. Scaramucci a round of applause Friday morning as he was introduced by Mr. Priebus, and then they also applauded Mr. Spicer.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ess-secretary/

Anthony Scaramucci says he's deleting old tweets: 'My political views don't matter

"Full transparency: I'm deleting old tweets," Scaramucci wrote on Saturday, adding that his "past views" have "evolved."


Those "past views" include endorsements of gun control, Barack Obama and even Hillary Clinton, who he called "incredibly competent."

In the same 2012 tweet, he expressed hope that she would run for president in 2016.


"I like Hillary," he said in one tweet. And in another: A "Hillary run makes everyone better."

Originally Posted by Judy

I like Spicer but I think the change to Anthony Scaramucci is a great move. I've watched him as an outside spokesman and he's wonderful, he'll be a terrific communications director for the White House.

I couldn't disagree more.

https://www.alipac.us/f9/anthony-sca...tter-i-348993/

Well, we'll see if he makes a positive difference, I think he will and hope he does.