Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told CNN on Thursday that he would no longer support President Trump if his attacks on four freshman congresswomen continued, dubbing his former boss’s remarks “racist and unacceptable.”
“They won last time, so it may be a winning campaign strategy, but it is against the idealistic values of America,” Scaramucci told “New Day” anchor Alisyn Camerota.
{mosads}“And so what ends up happening is it’s such a turnoff to a large group of people that you are running a risk that 15 percent of the people that you want to get you through that electoral map and back into the presidency say, ‘You know what? I love the policies, but I don’t like the “send her back” rhetoric. I don’t like the racist rhetoric of sending people back to the homes that they came from,’ ” Scaramucci added.
The comments from Scaramucci, who served just 11 days in the Trump administration, came the morning after the president’s rally in North Carolina, where members of the crowd chanted “send her back,” referring to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was born in Somalia before coming to the U.S. as a refugee.
Trump sparked a firestorm on Sunday after tweeting that Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen — all U.S. citizens and members of minority groups — should “go back” to other countries.
All of the Democrats were born in the U.S. with the exception of Omar, and Trump’s remarks have been called out as racist by much of the Democratic Party and a handful of Republicans.
On Thursday, the Palm Beach County Republicans disinvited Scaramucci from an August fundraiser for his recent criticism of the president in various television and radio interviews.
“I’m the chairman of the board, I spoke with members of the board, and the overwhelming consensus was we should disinvite him. That his comments regarding the president were unfair and unacceptable,” party chairman Michael Barnett told The Hill.