Donald Trump’s new communications director was caught on a hot microphone making comments about repairing the administration’s volatile relationship with CNN.
Between interviews on talk shows, Anthony Scaramucci said at the lectern of his first press briefing that he planned to call CNN President Jeff Zucker, as reported by BuzzFeed.
“In the back of my mind I have to call on CNN and send a message to Zucker that we are back in business,” he said.
He also added that Mr Zucker “helped me get the job by hitting those guys”, referring to the network’s firing of three employees for a retracted article about Russia involving Mr Scaramucci.
He joked that Mr Zucker “is not getting a placement fee for getting me the job”.
According to the transcript, he boasted that he could handle the White House press briefings without preparation or talking points.
His words come after months of attacks from the President, his former press secretary Sean Spicer and his successor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, accusing many big networks as “fake news” and promising to prosecute people in the government who leaked to the press.
In his first press appearances, Mr Scaramucci has appeared jovial and more at ease with reporters.
But Mr Scaramucci said he was committed to finding “leakers” and fire them from the White House.
He has also expressed frustrations about “fake news” and “media bias”.
“I think there’s been, at times, a disconnect between the way we see the President and how much we love the President, and the way perhaps some of you see the President, and I certainly see the American people probably see the President the way I do,” he said at his first White House press briefing.
