UPDATED with video: America’s shortest-serving White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci visited Stephen Colbert’s Late Show tonight and a good time was had by all. [Part 1 of interview above; Part 2 can be seen below]
Colbert asked what was going on in the widely shown photo of him and former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus in the Oval Office, staring daggers at each other. Mooch said their relationship had been fine when Priebus was head of RNC and Scaramucci was writing big checks to the party, but that all changed, as evidenced by the photo.
Colbert asked if Priebus had been a White House leaker. “Duh,” responded Mooch – or words to that effect.
Colbert notes Mooch kicked Priebus to the curb; Mooch simpered that wasn’t the only reason Trump brought him on board. Colbert wonders who the leaker is now that Priebus is out, asking “Is it [Steve] Bannon?”
“I’ve said that,” Mooch responded, patiently.
“Say it now,” Colbert shot back.
Resisting the urge to hit Colbert over the head with a blunt instrument, Mooch called Bannon a leaker, noting “he got caught on tape saying he was,” so Mooch had no problem saying it on national TV.
“Will he be gone in a week?” Colbert wondered, no doubt thinking of New York Times report this afternoon that media mogul Rupert Murdoch advised Trump, over dinner, to dump Bannon, while Secretary of Everything Jared Kushner and new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s up to the president,” Mooch demurred.
“What does Mooch think?” Colbert pressed.
“If it was up to me, he would be gone,” Mooch said – declining, to his credit, to discuss himself in the third person.
“But it’s not up to me,” he added.
Part 2 of Colbert’s Scaramucci interview here:
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