The new White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, made his debut in the Sunday talk shows, where he repeatedly warned he is ready to fire anyone who is caught leaking information to the press. “We have to get the leaks stopped,” Scaramucci said on Fox News Sunday. “What’s going on right now is a high level of unprofessionalism, and it’s not helping the president. … I will take drastic action to stop the leaks.” Part of that effort will include getting rid of people as Scaramucci said he is ready to “pare down the staff” at the communications office to stop the leaks. “It’s not fair to the president. It’s actually not fair to America.”
Scaramucci said on CBS he will be meeting with the communications staff at the White House on Monday with a clear message: If you leak, you get fired. “I’m just going to make it very, very clear, okay? Tomorrow I’m going to have a staff meeting. And it’s going to be a very binary thing,” Scaramucci said when CBS’ John Dickerson asked him what he’ll do with any leakers. “I’m not going to make any prejudgments about anybody on that staff. If they want to stay on the staff, they’re going to stop leaking.” He also offered up the message by way of a pun: “We’re as strong as our weakest leak.”
Dealing with leakers is just one way in which Scaramucci hinted he could make major changes to the way the White House communicates with the public. “There’s obviously a communications problem, because there’s a lot that we’ve done as it relates to executive orders, bills that have been signed, economic progress—I don’t want to cite all the economic data, but the economy is super-strong, business optimism is way up,” Scaramucci said on CNN. “I just think we need to deliver the messaging a little bit differently than we’ve been doing it in the past.”
One of those changes could involve going back to making White House press briefings open to the cameras, although Scaramucci emphasized the president is the one who will have the final word on that. “I think we should put the cameras on,” he said. “But if the president doesn’t want the cameras on, we’re not going to put the cameras on. It’s going to really be up to him.”
