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The White House’s new communications director just vowed to “kill all” government leakers

White House Communications Team Reshuffled, With Sean Spicer Resignation And Anthony Scaramucci Appointed Director
White House Communications Team Reshuffled, With Sean Spicer Resignation And Anthony Scaramucci Appointed Director
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Recently appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci just gave an obscenity-filled interview to the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in which he threatened to murder fellow government officials, called Chief of Staff Reince Priebus a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic,” and said that, unlike Steve Bannon, “I’m not trying to suck my own cock.”

President Donald Trump appointed Scaramucci to the federal government’s highest public relations position on Friday.

Here are seven of the most threatening, inflammatory quotes from Scaramucci’s interview with the New Yorker, which was published on Thursday.

  1. Scaramucci said he wanted to kill people in government who leak information to the press, according to Lizza: “What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people.”
  2. Scaramucci also described his lack of interest in drawing media attention while serving in the White House: “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock ... I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.”
  3. Lizza asked Scaramucci about a private dinner that he had with President Trump. Scaramucci, evidently incensed that the dinner had become public, said he’d be willing to fire whoever it was that leaked news of that dinner to Trump: “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.”
  4. Scaramucci did an impersonation of Priebus leaking the news to the press (Priebus turned out not to be the source of the leak): “Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’”
  5. Scaramucci confused Lizza by suggesting he had damaging information about President Trump’s White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago ... This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”
  6. Scaramucci also said that Priebus is “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac.”
  7. Scaramucci admitted to plan to tweeting to get under Priebus’s skin. “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.”

It’s not clear if Scaramucci thought the interview was off-record. But there’s no indication that he did:

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