Scaramucci: Trump hush money trial serving as ‘obligatory loyalty test’

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said Friday that former President Trump’s New York Hush money trial is serving as an “obligatory loyalty test.”

“It’s a section of high-ranking…  Republican officials, but it’s an obligatory loyalty test by all of them,” Scaramucci said on CNN’s “The Lead” with anchor Jake Tapper. “They’re using the same hand signals as Donald Trump; they’re wearing the same outfits as Donald Trump.”

“But it’ll never be enough for Donald Trump,” he added.

His comments come after multiple Republican politicians made the trek to New York to sit in on Trump’s hush money trial. Most notably in attendance were Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

“Unfortunately, for all of those guys, Michael Cohen has learned this, other people, myself included, that have worked for Mr. Trump, there’s no pleasing him and he’s incredibly transactional,” Scaramucci continued. 

Good, who visited the courtroom Thursday, said he and his colleagues went to the trial to stand in solidarity with Trump as he remains under a gag order in the case.

“They’ve got this gag order against him,” Good said Friday on Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.” “That’s why we went up there, so that we could say the things … this corrupt judge is not allowing him to say.”

The order, which has been expanded, restricts him from publicly commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and Judge Juan Merchan’s family. He can, however, make remarks about the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“This is a judge who seems to get all the high-profile conservative trials up there,” Good continued in the Fox Business interview. “And his own daughter is making — raising … tens of millions of dollars for the Democrat party, off this very trial.”

Trump is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult film star Story Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 election. The hush money payment was intended to silence her from going public with an alleged affair she had with the former president in 2006, which he has denied.

Daniels and Cohen, Trump’s ex-personal attorney, have both testified in the trial. Cross-examination of Cohen is expected to continue next week.