The College Republicans (CR) hosted Anthony Scaramucci on Monday, Nov. 1, for a speaker event in Keating First. Scaramucci is a businessman and political advocate who served as White House director of communication to President Trump for 11 days in July 2017.

Timothy Kyle, FCRH ’21 and president of the College Republicans, introduced Scaramucci as a native New Yorker with a long history in finance and politics.

“In recent years, Mr. Scaramucci has been both an ally and critic of President Donald Trump, serving briefly as White House communications director,” Kyle started.

“I got fired,” Scaramucci interrupted. “They all know that I got fired.”

Throughout his time — which ran for about an hour — Scaramucci talked about his experiences in finance, his quick hiring and firing as White House director of communications and his opinions on President Trump and the current political climate.

“You should be engaged in the system and you should share your opinion — so what I’m going to do, is I am going to talk for about five minutes and then I am going to take questions,” he said.

His initial speech described the way he grew up in a middle-class family from Long Island, N.Y. He spoke on attending Tufts University for his undergraduate degree and Harvard Law School while struggling to pay off his student loans.

He said he started Oscar Capital Management on Dec. 1, 1996, after he paid off his loans. Then, he addressed his time in the White House.

At first, he spoke about the building itself and the history it represents. He says the president’s quarters and the oval office is much smaller than he would have thought, and he does not shy away from his firing.

“I did 11 days in the White House and the last day sucked. If you’re in Washington … and you want a friend, buy a dog,” he said. “But even the dogs are barking and biting in Washington.”

Regarding his transition from Wall Street to Washington, Scaramucci said there was a lack of common goal.

“On Wall Street we are all on the same team — the green team — we are trying to make money,” he said. “In Washington, you could be motivated by power, or money, or politics, or change. There’s never a specific goal.”

Scaramucci was fired for his strong words against Reince Priebus, former chief-of-staff, after a conversation with a reporter in which he called him a “paranoid schizophrenic.” Scaramucci said he believed he was having an off-the-record conversation, despite not clarifying that fact with the reporter.

He said he found out that he was fired when he could not turn on his encrypted cell phone on the morning of July 31.

“When you are fired, when you have done something wrong like I did, the first thing you do is you take accountability … the second thing you do is you apologize, which of course I did, and then the third thing you do is you forgive yourself,” he said.

After the firing, Scaramucci said he continued to support President Donald Trump. However, he is a vocal critic of the president at this point in time.

“I don’t want to overly get into it because I do not want to make this too political… I just think there are certain things going on right now that I do not think are acceptable for the American people,” he said.

Although he did not want to “overly get into it,” attendees asked about the president and his policies, and the hour ended up concentrated mostly on Scaramucci’s criticism. After looking to the College Republican executive board for approval, he spoke on several issues he has with President Trump.

Scaramucci expressed concerned regarding the president’s involvement with Ukraine. He also said he believes in stronger immigration policies, but the crisis at the border is unacceptable.

Although he said he does not believe President Trump was colluding with the Russian government during the 2016 election, he believes that there was Russian intervention.

“Frankly, the president couldn’t even collude with his own staff,” he said.

He said that although he does not support many liberal, freshman senators — such as the Bronx’s Sen. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — he does not think it is wise for the president to turn his back on his constituents. He said he does not think the president will survive the impeachment inquiry.

But one of Scaramucci’s biggest problems with the president is the way he went after his wife, Dierdre Ball.

“I don’t think it was necessary for him to go after my wife after giving him three years of my life and a tremendous amount of money,” he said. “I’m an Italian from Long Island. Don’t go after the women in my family. That was the red line for me.”

Later on in the evening, one student, Anike Tella-Martins, FCRH ’20, pushed him on this statement.

“How is it that your personal line was your wife?” she asked. “Even though maybe you had your opinions that were different from the president, you still supported him which indicates to me that even if it was a personal issue that you had, it’s not a big enough issue for you to not work with him.”

Scaramucci said he was playing by party lines — no matter what, he was going to support the Republican presidential candidate.

“Unfortunately, I did what other people did — which was morally equivocate on a lot of issues,” he said. “I should have been a stronger person, and I should have said a year ago that the way he’s handling himself and dividing the country is completely wrong.”

College Republicans did not respond to several requests for comment.