Extract from ABC News
Anthony Scaramucci believes corruption is being allowed to fester in Washington DC. (ABC News)
Anthony Scaramucci may no longer be the shortest-tenured press secretary in the history of the White House, but he is increasingly concerned about the direction of the United States under President Donald Trump.
Speaking to 7.30 after his record of 11 days in the job was broken, Mr Scaramucci highlighted issues of corruption and a Trump-led plutocracy.
"In our society now, there's a very large group of people that feel hopeless, they're despairing, and they look at the system and say, 'Oh my God, it's a two-tiered system and I'm not part of the tier that can take advantage of these things or get away with breaking the law,'" Mr Scaramucci said.
"This is something that we really have to fix unless we want to further corrode society.
"This has been a phenomenal country, and very heavy damage has been done to the country by the president and his family, and we have to call it out."
Katie Zacharia lasted just five days as White House press secretary. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
Asked specifically what he thought Mr Trump had failed on, his former press secretary zeroed in on tariffs, his handling of the Epstein files and committing the US to war in the Middle East.
'Reprehensible': Mooch hits out at Trump
Australia's former ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, earlier issued a warning about corruption in Washington, but on Thursday Mr Scaramucci took it further, accusing Mr Trump of lining his own pockets at the expense of his own supporters.
US President Donald Trump has made a significant amount of money during his second term in office. (Reuters: Umit Bektas)
"This is hard for me to admit … but had he won the election in 2020, I think the world and America would've been better off because he had people around him that were running compliance and his general counsel was rock solid," Mr Scaramucci said.
"He had a group of Republicans that were more traditional in terms of the way they were handling things."
Mr Trump's personal wealth has increased significantly since his return to office.
It was revealed in his own financial disclosure in June that the president made $US1.4 billion ($2 billion) from several cryptocurrency ventures in the past year.
"The crypto thing is probably the most reprehensible,"Mr Scaramucci said.
"And I expect him over the next two years to make billions and billions of dollars for himself."
Mr Trump and his administration have recently and repeatedly denied any corrupt dealings while he has been in office. Mr Trump said he donated his salary during his first term as president.
Anthony Scaramucci during his tenure as White House communications director. (Reuters: Joshua Roberts)
However, Mr Scaramucci, who became known as Mooch, said making money was Mr Trump's primary driver, and he was using it to turn Washington DC to his financial advantage.
"He's surrounded now by plutocrats that are being very obsequious towards him," Mr Scaramucci told 7.30.
"He sees each of them as a potential money centre for him and his family.
"People say that Washington is a swamp, and I say that Donald Trump turned Washington into a gold-plated hot tub. It's no longer a swamp.
"He's figured out a way to get the gold plating in there and the bubbles going for everybody.
"And don't go by me; 87 per cent of Americans when they're polled now believe that their government is corrupt."
Anthony Scaramucci says Donald Trump has turned Washington DC into a "gold-plated hot tub". (Reuters: Al Drago)
Several sources have reported corruption concerns.
A Gallup poll in early September found 89 per cent of constituents polled believed government corruption was widespread.
The figure represents a 20-year high.
A CNN poll released this week found 19 per cent of registered voters believed it was the top issue before the US midterms, while a September Reuters/Ipsos poll put that figure at 12 per cent.
While Mr Scaramucci conceded that the Trump administration's tax cuts might have in a "small way" helped some of America's lowest earners, he expected voters to rail against Mr Trump at the upcoming midterm elections.
"I think these sorts of referendums are going to show you that his political power has been weakened," Mr Scaramucci said.
Witkoff, Putin and a warning
If those elections lead to the Democrats taking back control of the House and possibly the Senate, Mr Scaramucci said they should not try to attack Mr Trump like they did during his last term, when the Democrat-controlled House voted to impeach him.
Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Steve Witkoff during a meeting at the Constantine Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia. (Sputnik: Kristina Solovyova/Pool via Reuters)
"I would implore them to try to come up with policies and ideas to fix the problems that the American people are after," he said.
"We know throughout history that when we go after our political adversaries, we try to jail them or we try to impeach them, we actually get the opposite effect.
"Adolf Hitler was made more powerful by his arrest. On the more positive side, Nelson Mandela was made more powerful by his 27-year imprisonment.
"I think we have to be very careful punishing our political adversaries, no matter how bad Donald Trump is.
"What happened here in the state of New York and in the city of New York in 2024 actually weirdly made [Trump] more powerful," Mr Scaramucci said, referring to Mr Trump's 2024 conviction by a New York jury for falsifying business documents.
"I'm really hoping that the Democrats do not go in that direction."
The Trump administration's openness to working with Russian President Vladimir Putin is another source of concern for Mr Scaramucci.
The US recently did a deal with Russia for diesel and Mr Putin met with US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg.
The meeting led to the Kremlin announcing that Mr Putin agreed to next month resume negotiations with Washington and Kyiv aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Russia is still terming the war a special military operation. Since it began in February 2022, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost.
The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv has come under frequent attack from Russia. (Reuters: Gleb Garanich)
Despite that, Russian state media posted a clip of Mr Witkoff calling Mr Putin "a humanitarian".
Mr Scaramucci said the comments were a sign of the scale of sycophancy in Mr Trump's midst.
"That's how nuts these people are that are around Donald Trump. And that's what Donald Trump and people like Vladimir Putin expect people to do, is to say lies about them," Mr Scaramucci said.
"He couldn't be less of a humanitarian, if you look at the war crimes and you look at what he's done to his own people and you look at the treachery over the 27 years that he's reigned in Russia."
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