Who'd want Scaramucci's job now? In Trump's White House, no one comes out alive | Lucia Graves

Whoever fills Scaramucci’s shoes will continue the circus anew before being sacrificed, in an oft-repeated ritual, on Trump’s altar

• Lucia Graves is a Guardian US columnist

It’s been a very bad week for Anthony Scaramucci, who, after getting sacked from his marriage, got sacked from his job.

He’s dead even to his alma mater – Harvard law school’s alumni directory, in an erroneous report, apparently declared him deceased.

Anthony Scaramucci (10 days)

Named director of communications after having been denied a White House role earlier, the New York financier and Republican fundraiser promptly threatened to fire everyone in his team over leaks. He also staged a combative and contradictory briefing room debut and talkshow tour; sought to bat away questions about suspiciously liberal pronouncements in his past and support for Trump’s Republican enemies; deleted tweets; warred openly with the former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and seemingly forced him out; compared the struggle to take healthcare away from millions of Americans to Lincoln’s battle against slavery; poured obscene invective about leakers, Priebus and Steve Bannon down the phone to a New Yorker reporter; missed the birth of his son; saw his wife file for divorce; and was asked to resign.

Michael Flynn (23 days)

Trump’s first national security adviser – one of four generals the president has employed – resigned after it was revealed he misled Vice-President Mike Pence over his contacts with Russians during the election campaign. It was later reported that Yates had warned the White House Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

James Comey (110 days)

The most shocking firing of them all. Trump sacked his FBI director, by messenger rather than in person, as congressional and justice department investigations into links between Trump aides and Russia gathered pace. Lest anyone retain any doubt about why Trump pressed the big red button, he told NBC in a primetime interview the firing was tied to “this Russia thing”. The reverberations will be felt for some time yet.

Sean Spicer (183 days)

The long-suffering but loyal surrogate for the president handed in his resignationin response to Scaramucci’s appointment. A Republican insider and Priebus ally, he never settled into the press secretary role after an infamous debut in which he angrily insisted Trump’s fantastic version of crowd sizes at the inauguration were true. Achieving by way of Melissa McCarthy’s lethal Saturday Night Live impression a somewhat dubious celebrity, his days at the White House were long rumoured to be numbered. His departure on a point of principle having seemingly been justified only 10 days later, he may now claim a sort of hollow vindication.

Reince Priebus (189 days)

The former Republican National Committee chair stayed loyal – at least in public – to Trump through Friday, when he was told his time was up. He stayed loyal after handing in his resignation too, rhapsodising about the president and his mission in interviews with CNN and, of course, Fox News. But it seemed Priebus’s card had alway been marked, less over his initial blocking of Scaramucci, which enraged the Mooch, or by his closeness to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, than by his private advice to Trump to quit the presidential race after 8 October, when the infamous Access Hollywood “Gropegate” tape was published. The Washington Post reported that Priebus was thus never considered a member of the “Oct 8th coalition”, a name for the inner cabal of Trumpites who have never wavered, however low their boss’s reputation has sunk.

That his stint in the public eye lasted less than two weeks, though, should be less a punchline than it is edifying. The lesson: there is no worse job than trying to speak for Trump.

Though his entire White House has been full of political upheaval, with jobs changing over and positions going unfilled, it’s not by chance the the role of spokesperson is most fraught.

Under any president it’s a job that requires answering to the public, and if you work for Trump, that means obfuscating all the time. It also means, more than any other single person, and there are plenty within the White House, you’re the fallguy to absorb Trump’s hit.

If anyone could have succeeded in this line of thankless work, it should have been Scaramucci. After all he was in many ways the spitting image of his boss: petty and vain, if endlessly entertaining, a man who loves – above all – the sight of his own face on TV.

Most tellingly, perhaps, he’s loyalty-obsessed but disloyal himself. A strange distinction indeed for a guy who backed any candidate other than Trump as recently as last year, and fundraised for Obama in 2008.

His disloyalty was perhaps on display last week when his wife reportedly left him for being so “hell-bent” on the White House, relentlessly – and opportunistically – courting Trump after his presidential rise. In January he sold his $11m stake in SkyBridge Capital in anticipation of a White House job.

Whether the details of the divorce report are true, what’s clear is he was willing to sacrifice everything: family, finance, reputation. It’s the same win-at-all-costs drive we’ve seen displayed repeatedly in Trump.

Then Trump turned around and sacrificed him.

He had been hired, it’s been said, as a tool to hasten the departure of Reince Priebus. And here, the loyalty flip again: though Scaramucci had once described his relationship with Priebus as one of “brothers” upon arriving in the White House, he went on the attack.

Later, he sought to clarify that he and Priebus were like feuding biblical brothers Cain and Abel – but as we now see, in the Trump White House version of the story, no one comes out alive.

(July 21, 2017) “I think it’s super important for us to let the president express his personality”

Scaramucci, loyal and telegenic, was named White House communication director, a move that immediately prompted the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer.

(July 22, 2017) "Full transparency: I'm deleting old tweets."

Scaramucci spent his first Saturday on the job cleaning up his Twitter feed to remove historic tweets critical of the president and his agenda.

(July 23, 2017) "We’re strong as our weakest leak”

'The Mooch', as he likes to be known, appeared on the Sunday morning politics TV shows. He promised to root out “leakers” and said any he found would be fired.

(July 24, 2017) "A great night in West Virginia."

Scaramucci’s estranged wife, Deidre Ball, gave birth to their second child in New York. Scaramucci traveled on Air Force One with the president to the Boy Scouts annual jamboree.

(July 25, 2017) “If the leaks continue, then I’ve got to let everybody go”

Thumbs up and smiles aboard Air Force One on the way to Ohio.

(July 26, 2017) “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock”

Scaramucci dined at the White House with the president, the first lady, Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox News executive Bill Shine. After dinner, he placed a fateful call to New Yorker writer, Ryan Lizza...

(July 27, 2017) “I sometimes use colorful language"

... The New Yorker published that conversation.

(July 28, 2017) "Leave civilians out of this"

The New York Post reported that Scaramucci’s infatuation with Trump was a catalyst for his wife’s decision to file for divorce while nine months pregnant. Meanwhile Trump announces on Twitter that Reince Priebus is out as chief of staff.

(July 31, 2017) “Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House communications director"

Scaramucci watched as John Kelly was sworn in as the president’s new chief of staff. Hours later, the White House announced that Scaramucci was out as White House communications director, reportedly at the urging of Kelly.

The move was said to come at the request of Trump’s new chief of staff, John F Kelly, the latest dummy to buy into Trump’s game. “Mr Scaramucci felt it was best to give chief of staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team,” read a statement from the White House. Whether it was issued by axed spokesman Sean Spicer or current deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was somewhat comically unclear.

What isn’t is that there will be no clean slates, as the White House seeks to pivot away from turmoil and toward passing its tax cut package: whoever fills his shoes will continue the circus anew before being sacrificed, in an oft-repeated ritual, on Trump’s altar.

For the president has always been willing to betray his political allies without a second thought, even as he demands comic levels of fealty from his underlings.

And having watched the rapid unraveling of the former family man known as Scaramucci, no person in their right mind would take the job now.