During Thursday night’s broadcast of Hannity, Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to persuade short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci to run for New York City mayor in the next election.
With highly unpopular current mayor Bill de Blasio tossing his hat into an already overcrowded 2020 Democratic presidential field, Hannity brought on the former White House communications chief—who lasted all of 10 days (or was it 11?) in the Trump administration—to weigh in.
“Well, [de Blasio] had bad idea after bad idea, failure after failure, and no better person to give a reaction,” the Fox News star said, introducing The Mooch.
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After the two blasted the New York mayor’s record and policy positions for a bit, Scaramucci lamented that NYC was a “one-party city” and de Blasio is a “very difficult guy to beat for an independent or Republicans the way the system is rigged.” (Due to term limits, de Blasio actually can’t run again even if he wanted to.)
Hannity noted that Republican Rudy Giuliani became mayor, prompting Scaramucci to respond that it was only by a slim margin.
“But, I can see you running because you’re libertarian,” Hannity remarked.
“You can see me running?” Scaramucci asked.
“I can,” Hannity said.
“I live on Long Island,” the one-time White House official said. “How am I going to run for mayor of New York?”
Hannity suggested that Scaramucci paying taxes in the city would make him a worthy candidate while Scaramucci jokingly asked the primetime cable news host if he would buy him a New York City apartment.
“This is a guy that makes money, like, by the second,” Hannity said, gesturing at Scaramucci while addressing viewers.
For some viewers, Scaramucci is perhaps not most well-known for earning money, but for the scandal in which he departed the White House. Less than two weeks into his 2017 tenure as the one White House official meant to be the most skilled at communicating with the press, Scaramucci made headlines for calling up then-New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza and going on a profanity-laced tirade about his colleagues.
After demanding Lizza tell him who leaked details to him about a certain White House dinner, Scaramucci called then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus a “fucking paranoid schizophrenic” trying to “cock-block him” and said he wasn’t “trying to suck my own cock” like then-Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon.
The outburst was in response to a report about Scaramucci having dinner at the White House with none other than Hannity and former Fox News executive Bill Shine, along with President Trump.
