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Donald Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has claimed that Elon Musk thinks the president “is an idiot.”
Scaramucci, who spent 11 days as Trump’s White House communications director in 2017 before he was fired, was speaking at the U.K.’s Hay Festival on Thursday.
“Musk thinks Trump’s an idiot,” Scaramucci said. “And let me tell you how I know, because Musk doesn’t think like we do.”
The former Wall Street financier made the remarks while speaking at the annual arts and literary festival, which The Independent is a sponsor. He was being interviewed by his podcast co-host Alastair Campbell, a long-time adviser and press secretary to former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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Scaramucci explained that in calling Trump’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro a “moron” last month, the Tesla CEO effectively said the same of the president because they have similar views on trade policy.
“Musk did something to let everybody know he’s not happy with Trump,” Scaramucci explained. “He put out on X that Peter Navarro is as dumb as a box of rocks. And then the next tweet was, ‘I would like to apologize to the box of rocks, because I just offended the box of rocks.’”
He then gestured with his hands to demonstrate how closely aligned Navarro and Trump are on trade policy.
“This is Navarro’s trade policy. This is Donald Trump’s trade policy,” he said. “You see, he thinks he’s an idiot,” he said, referring to Musk and Trump.
Scaramucci previously predicted that Musk would only last six weeks in the White House, but he clung on for four months. This week, he announced he is planning to rein in his political spending and “do a lot less in the future.”
Musk has stepped back from front-line politics since proving unpopular with the public, according to polling, and he faced ridicule over the outcome of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race last month.
“He’s finished, done, gone. He polls terribly. People hate him,” an anonymous GOP operative told Politico. “He’d go to Wisconsin thinking he can buy people’s votes, wear the cheese hat, act like a 9-year-old. … It doesn’t work. It’s offensive to people.”
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The political commentator, who earned the nickname “The Mooch” during his short stint in Trump’s first administration, agreed. “He’s out. Trust me,” he told Campbell.
Scaramucci also speculated about who Trump would likely fire next following the ousting of his national security adviser, Mike Waltz.
“Rubio could get axed, getting too much attention,” he mused.
When asked about the future of the MAGA movement once Trump finishes his second term, Scaramucci said that he doesn’t hold out hopes that Vice President JD Vance will succeed him.
“If [Trump] makes the full term, he will destroy Rubio and Vance,” he said. “He will eat them alive, he’s already got Vance in the wood chipper.”
The former banker said that accepting Trump’s job offer in July 2017 was down to his “ego” and called it “Greek tragedy hubris.”
“That was a very big mistake,” Scaramucci said. “And I have to own that for the rest of my life.”
