President Donald Trump criticized former Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci on Tuesday, noting that he grew weary of his repeated phone calls.
Trump claimed that Scaramuci spent the past five months begging for the president to take him back into the White House despite getting fired.
“He called so much, he’s a nervous, neurotic, wreck — he called so much, and I said, ‘Anthony, I’m sorry, I can’t do that, I can’t take you in,'” Trump recalled. “And I said, ‘You gotta stop all these phone calls, too many calls Anthony.’ And I wouldn’t take his calls and lo and behold now he feels differently.”
The president spoke to reporters at the airport in Morristown, New Jersey, as he left to travel to Pennsylvania.
Trump reminded the press that Scaramucci supported former Gov. Scott Walker for president in the Republican primary, before it was clear that Trump would win. Scaramucci then switched to Trump and defended him frequently on television during the general election in the hopes of getting a job in the administration.
Trump finally granted Scaramucci a job in 2017 as the director of communications, but he imploded after New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza recorded and published a profane phone call of him discussing his White House colleagues.
He was fired by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after only eleven days on the job.
In July, Scaramucci criticized the president as “racist” in response to his messages on Twitter about Democrat members of Congress. He again criticized the president on television on Friday with Bill Maher, calling some of the president’s actions “absolutely indefensible.”
“What I’m astonished by is the lack of courage of Republican elected leaders not to pick up the phone and call him out,” Scaramucci said to Maher.
Trump responded to Scaramucci’s criticism on Saturday, reminding supporters on Twitter that his former aid was a failure in the White House.
“Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country,” Scaramucci replied.
On Saturday, Scaramucci warned Republicans that Trump should be removed from the presidential ticket in 2020, comparing him to the Russian nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl.
On Monday, Scaramucci unleashed against the president on Twitter and in a series of interviews on CNN.
“You are losing your fastball— very weak troll,” he wrote. “Bullying is the most anti-American thing in our culture and it is emanating from the Oval Office. Many have called and are willing to work on a necessary replacement. Time to call in a good relief pitcher.”