Trump’s new message guru wants ‘a more positive mojo’

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump’s new communications adviser says it’s time to hit the “reset button.”

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci pledged to begin “an era of a new good feeling” and said he hopes to “create a more positive mojo.” He also promised to crack down on information leaks and pledged to better focus the message coming from the White House.

To that end, Scaramucci suggested changes to come, noting: “I have in my pocket a radio studio, a television studio, and a movie studio. The entire world has changed; we need to rethink the way we’re delivering our information.”

Trump announced Friday that Scaramucci — a polished television commentator and Harvard Law graduate — would take over the administration’s top messaging job. The appointment came as the president contends with sinking approval ratings and struggles to advance his legislative agenda. The president has also been frustrated with the attention devoted to investigations of allegations of his election campaign’s connections to Russia.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer abruptly resigned in protest over Scaramucci’s appointment. He will be replaced by his former deputy Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

The challenges for Scaramucci’s new role were evident in a series of interviews, where he discussed his plans for press strategy, but was beset by questions about the Russia investigation and the president’s Twitter feed.

Asked about the response to the Russia stories, Scaramucci said on Fox that a “two-pronged approach” was needed, saying that “in some ways we want to deescalate things and have there be a level of diplomacy. In other ways, we want it to be very hard-hitting and war-like.”

The president believes he is his own best spokesman, frequently opting to directly speak to the public via Twitter. Asked about the president’s tweets about the investigation on CBS’ “Face the Nation”, Scaramucci said he would not get in the way.

“That’s the crystal essence of the president. And so some of you guys in the media think it’s not helpful. But if he thinks it’s helpful to him, let him do it,” Scaramucci said.

He also said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “we’re going to — we’re going to defend him very, very aggressively when there’s nonsensical stuff being said about him. And he will probably dial back some of those tweets.”

Scaramucci also said on CNN that an unnamed person told him that “if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those e-mails, you would have never seen it.”

He then quickly said he was quoting the president, adding that “he basically said to me, hey, you know, this is — maybe they did it. Maybe they didn’t do it.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused the Russian government of meddling through hacking in last year’s election to benefit Trump and harm Clinton, and authorities are exploring potential coordination between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

On Saturday, the newly minted Trump aide announced he was deleting old tweets. Some of the tweets were at odds with Trump’s views, including one that praised Hillary Clinton’s competence. Trump defeated Clinton for president last year and continues to criticize her, including in several tweets Saturday.

Scaramucci said on Fox that the old tweets were “a total distraction.” He added: “When I made the decision to take this job, my politics and my political ideas do not matter at all. What matters is that I am supporting — subordinating all of that to the president’s agenda.”