More than six months into the new presidency, Washington is still in shock. The Trump White House is every bit as extraordinary as the 45th president of the United States. The bare-knuckle fights that have gone on in the West Wing have left outside observers gasping with surprise. Every presidency has had its rivalries and power struggles among those around the incumbent. This goes with the territory of American politics. But what is amazing is the very public manner in which the Trump administration squabbling has gone on.
The latest Trump aide to be floored in this vicious power struggle is White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, a Wall Street financier said to have been extremely close to the president. However, clearly not so close that the president has hesitated in firing Scaramucci just ten days after he appointed him. A better idea of what actually happened will have to wait until this administration’s movers and shakers start to produce their memoirs in four or eight years’ time. But for the moment it very much seems as if Scaramucci actually floored himself with a vicious blow to his own chin.
He phoned a reporter in order to deliver a profanity-laden attack on Reince Priebus, Trump’s then chief of staff. He also launched into a diatribe against Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon. He boasted that he had direct access to the president and did not have to go through Priebus, whom he described as paranoid and schizophrenic. Appalled at the verbal assault and Scaramucci’s contemptuous behavior toward him in the West Wing, Priebus walked, following in the steps of Sean Spicer, Trump’s hard-pressed but dogged press secretary who resigned, he said, to give Scaramucci a “clean slate”.
Trump appointed as his new chief of staff a reputedly no-nonsense former military commander, General John Kelly. It remains to be seen if Kelly insisted that Scaramucci had to go or the president himself decided that the fast-talking Wall Street operator was not after all going to be any good in his role.
Trump has tweeted that the White House is not in chaos. The president’s many critics are of course taking yet another opportunity to damn the administration. On the face of it, they are shooting at an open goal. But something unexpected appears to be happening. From the moment the new president was inaugurated, the Washington political establishment megaphoned by the self-regarding and normally hugely-indulged press corps, went into attack-dog mode. Yet half a year on, the main effect of the unceasing assault has not been to damage the president but rather to bore the public. It has also served to make the liberal establishment and its army of outraged social messengers look more than a little ridiculous.
The continuing controversy over alleged Russian electoral meddling, the endless claims that Trump is not fit to be president and the constant sniping at anything and everything that the president does are blunting the blades of his would-be political assassins. The former cowboy film star Ronald Reagan sailed through successive scandals without injury and was nicknamed the “Teflon president”. Maybe history will come to refer to Trump as the “stone president” impervious to the daggers of his opponents and little affected by their acidic criticism.
