Scaramucci: Key Trump strength is ‘reading people’

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said Thursday that President Trump has the “best emotional intelligence” when it comes to reading people. 

“You know he’s not dumb, I know he’s not dumb,” Scaramucci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “In fact, if anything, he’s got probably the best emotional intelligence in terms of sizing and reading people, and he got Steve Bannon right. And he basically declared that yesterday for everybody.”

Scaramucci’s comments came after Trump on Wednesday delivered a stinging rebuke of former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, after excerpts from an upcoming book were made public in which Bannon was quoted speaking critically of the president and his family.

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In that book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by Michael Wolff, Bannon, the Breitbart News chief, called a June 2016 meeting between Trump’s eldest son and a Russian lawyer “treasonous” and suggested that there may be something to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

Trump responded in a lengthy statement, saying that Bannon had “lost his mind” since leaving his White House job last year. 

Bannon, who emerged as a key player in the final months of Trump’s 2016 campaign, has largely been supportive of Trump since leaving the White House, and has worked to recruit congressional candidates aligned with the president’s brand of conservatism.