Anthony Scaramucci lasted 11 days as President Donald Trump’s White House communications director. Nearly a decade later, he says his own ego put him in the job.
“When I decided to work with Donald Trump, I was not the right person for that job,” Scaramucci said in a recent interview on Scott D. Clary’s “Success Story” podcast. “I misjudged that, and I paid a heavy price, but I knew what I was doing.”
Scaramucci said he was “too combative” for Trump, who in his view wants something other than a working partnership.
“Trump wants someone more obedient, more flattering,” he said. “He doesn’t want a reciprocal relationship as much as he wants one-sided praise.”
“It’s not reciprocal, it’s not a business relationship, it’s not give and take,” he added.
He said he took the job anyway because it fit the story he told himself about his life. He pointed to growing up in a working-class neighborhood, going to Tufts and Harvard Law School, working at Goldman Sachs and founding his own companies.
“And now, I’m going to work for the President of the United States. I’m a respected figure,” he said, describing how he thought about it at the time.
His wife saw it differently.
“My wife kept saying, ‘You’re crazy. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to do any good,’” Scaramucci said. “Eleven days later, I got my a– handed to me.”
He described his exit with his usual flair, saying he was “shot out of a cannon on the North Portico of the White House and rolled between margarita glasses after being skinned alive.”
“I let my pride and I let my ego influence my decision making,” he said.
Scaramucci said the lesson is the main message of his new book: people should stop and reflect, and look for advice from people smarter than they are. Even that won’t guarantee success, he said.
“You could be the best decision-maker in the world and still get 30, 40% of your decisions wrong,” he said.
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