Who is Scaramucci?

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned, just as Anthony Scaramucci was being welcomed as the new Director of Communications. A “clean slate” Spicer said.  So who is Anthony Scaramucci?

A 53-year-old Long Island native, Anthony Scaramucci is a graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Law School.  He is co-founder of Skybrigge Capital and is a billionaire. 

Scaramucci grew up in a middle-class family descended from Italian immigrants, his father was a construction worker. His father paid for his Tufts education, and he paid for his own way through Harvard. He began his career at Goldman Sachs.

Scaramucci created Skybridge in 1999.  He won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award New York Award in Financial Services in 2011 and was ranked No. 85 on Worth’s 2016 Power 100 list.

As the White House Director of Communications, he will be in control of all messaging in and out. 

This is an appointment that makes you go hmmmm.  And yes in a good way.

Does he need the prestige of being in the White House? No. He is a highly intelligent, highly educated and highly successful businessman. If he wanted to be retired on a mega-yacht on the Mediterranean, surrounded by a harem, he could be.

Is he corruptible for peanuts like a Hillary Clinton hack? No. That’s not to say Spicer was corrupt nor any particular person. But he won’t be subject to small whims, and he is enough of an outsider and a businessman that he will have no problem crucifying anyone who gets in the way of this version of “profit” which is the Trump agenda.

He is not the first billionaire appointed by Trump, and may not be the last. But in each case, the measure of success and capability is concrete. Trump hires 

How will this translate into a change in the Trump White House? Scaramucci has the advantage of knowing how the existing problems came about, the level of difficulty and the intensity. 

As a businessman, he knows the goal is the protection of the Trump agenda and a turn around in press coverage. And (not if but) when it is necessary to wage war, Scaramucci will wage to win. 

Sean Spicer’s attempt to wage war against the media was always tentative at best because he needed the job, it was the best he’d ever had. This is not Scaramucci’s best job ever; it is his effort to give back. 

Unless I miss my guess, he will do what it takes.  This is a power position and Scaramucci knows how to wield power.