Okay, buckle up, kiddos, because this is a wild ride. Everybody knows that when a staffer or aide or even a Cabinet member of Trump’s has had to part ways with The Donald for one reason or another, they usually take a little bitterness with them
Some more than others.
Maybe nobody, except maybe Mike Pence, carries as much resentment against Donald Trump than his former communications director, Anthony Scaramucci. But that doesn’t mean that what he says from experience can be discounted as stemming from sheer dislike.
After all, even Pence only turned on Trump after the former president broke the final straw, and he was clear about it: “The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution. Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”
But The Mooch has even more reason. He was a trued believer in the Trump Doctrine, and he got fired so fast, they made a literal metric out of his time at Trump’s side. He lasted a scant 10 days in the White House, leading people to measure employment duration for others in “Scaramuccis” — if someone lasted a month, for example, they were said to have made it 3 Scaramuccis.
But Anthony has his own metric that he’s devised, and it’s for how much someone dislikes Trump himself. And he measures it against an unlikely source: Melania.
For a guy who once said Trump is “the domestic terrorist of the 21st century,” we really shouldn’t take that lightly. But in a new interview on the MeidasTouch podcast, Anthony totally went there.
Nobody wants [Kamala] to win more than me. Maybe Melania Trump. That could be the only person I think of. Because she hates [Trump].
WOW.
The former aide said that he measures how much people hate Trump by “the Melania standard.” For example, he said that his wife Deidre hates Trump “as much as Melania,” while his MT host, Ben Meiselas, hates Trump “slightly less than Melania.”
It’s not like Scaramucci isn’t in a position to know. He was up close and personal with them, and Melania had more contact with communications personnel than even her husband did.
“I’ve met one person that actually hates Trump more than Melania,” Scaramucci said. “That’s General Milley. He’s the only guy I’ve met so far that actually hates him more than Melania.”
That stands to reason, since Trump actually at one point said Milley should be killed shortly after the January 6, 2021 insurrection that Donald incited at the Capitol. But Milley’s hatred comes from a place of respect for the military as well. We all saw Trump disrespect the military once again just last week at Arlington National Cemetery, when his staff shoved an employee out of the way of his cameras so he could film a promo there.
But Mark Milley has an even more disgusting account than that — more disgusting even than when Trump suggested John McCain was only a hero because his plane got shot down.
At one particular military ceremony, Milley selected a severely disabled combat veteran, Luis Avila, to sing at the event. When it was over, Trump said to Milley, loud enough for multiple people to hear him, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”
That’s just plain gross, and it’s easy to see why the highest-ranking officer in the entire US Armed Forces might hold some hatred for the man who said it.
In fact, I’d say that rates at least a Two Melania level of hatred.
There’s a litany of people who once revered Trump, or at least liked that he was doing the things they wanted to see done. Most of those people have now completely turned their attitudes around after seeing what kind of man Trump is in everyday life.
For most of us, it can be hard to understand how these people were ever fooled to begin with — how many of them came to work for him AFTER he public made fun of a disabled reporter, or continued to make disgusting remarks about women at every turn? It would seem like that should have been enough.
But even if it did end up taking a personal experience for folks to come around, they eventually did. Pence, Bill Barr, Kames Mattis, Chris Christie, John Bolton, Stephanie Grisham, even Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao.
In fact, maybe Omarosa Manigault-Newman summed it up best:
“Donald Trump, who would attack civil rights icons and professional athletes, who would go after grieving black widows, who would say there were good people on both sides, who endorsed an accused child molester; Donald Trump, and his decisions and his behavior, was harming the country. I could no longer be a part of this madness.”
I wonder where that sits on the Melania hatred scale.
Scaramucci: Nobody wants her to win more than me. Maybe Melania Trump—she could be the only person I can think of. I judge the hatred of Donald Trump by the 'Melania standard.' Like, Ben hates Trump slightly less than Melania. My wife hates Trump as much as Melania. I met one… pic.twitter.com/oC27pjpDsl [1]
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 31, 2024 [2]