Anthony Scaramucci on white supremacists, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump
Anthony Scaramucci made a rare public appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night, and the talk show host took him to task.
Opening the interview with a gotcha question, Colbert asked 'The Mooch' about why US President Donald Trump "shanked a softball" in not condemning white supremacists after the weekend's marches in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"I think there is a couple of issues there. He said the all sides thing; I think he should have been harsher on that. He should have condemned white supremacism."
Colbert pushed Scaramaucci and asked why didn't he condemn the hate groups, and who might have stopped him from doing so.
"I think at the end of the day it's the president himself. and so I'm not going to blame and point fingers at anybody."
Colbert, clearly unsatisfied with the answers, wanted clarity from the former communications director as to why the president "choked".
"Again I think it's a counter-intuitive thing with him as it relates to the media - the media is expecting him to do something, he sometimes does the exact opposite."
Talk then switched to the White House itself, and Colbert put Scaramucci on the spot and asked him what it was like inside the Trump administration.
"From the outside, it looks like a dumpster fire; there are rumours of infighting and chaos. What was it like in there for your 10-days?" the comedian asked Scaramucci.
"It's a tough place; there was a lot of infighting - the front-stabber was back-stabbed," responded Scaramucci.
"They go behind each other's backs and leak things to the press and say nasty things to try to destabilise them or to influence the president's view of them."
Colbert asked him about his relationship with Steve Bannon and what he thinks should happen to the president's chief strategist.
"If it was up to me he would be gone."
In another section of the interview, Colbert asked a very blunt question of 'The Mooch' about Bannon.
"Are there elements of white supremacy within the White House; is Steve Bannon a white supremacist?"
"I don't think he's a white supremacist, although I've never asked him if he was a white supremacist," he responded.
"What I don't like though is the toleration of it. It's something that should be completely and totally intolerated. [sic]
