Anthony Scaramucci, who it was recently reported would take a top post in Donald Trump’s White House, described his role to reporters Friday morning in Trump Tower.
“It’s pretty much as described,” the SkyBridge Capital founder said. “It’ll be in the Office of Public Liaison, really trying to get the President’s message out, not only to the intergovernmental agencies, but also the commercial message to both American businesses and the international business community.”
The White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs—formerly known as the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs—is currently led by Valerie Jarrett, one of President Barack Obama’s closest confidantes.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that, according to two unnamed transition officials, Scaramucci’s role would be akin to Jarret’s. Trump’s transition team has not formally announced a position for Scaramucci.
Scaramucci told reporters the comparison to Jarrett was probably an “overstatement.”
“We’re going to help the President of the United States and the administration express themselves in a way—and no offense to you guys in the media—but I sort of think that we’ve got to go directly to the American people,” he told reporters, “So they can see him in the way his children see him, in the way I see him, in the way people that love him and support him inside this building and ultimately in the White House.”
The Associated Press reported in early January that Omarosa Manigault, former stand-out in Trump’s “The Apprentice” series, would also have a position in the administration geared towards engagement.
Scaramucci memorably argued on CNN in December, in defense of Trump’s hedging on environmental policy, that the scientific consensus on climate change could eventually be overturned, just like what was “overwhelming science that the Earth was flat.”
