Anthony Scaramucci has worn many hats in his life — Harvard Law graduate, Goldman Sachs banker, hedge fund founder, political financier, White House communications director.
Now, two months after his chaotic 10-day stint in the Trump administration, he has found yet another calling.
On Monday night, he formally launched the Scaramucci Post, his new media outlet, at an event in Midtown Manhattan.
What is the Scaramucci Post, exactly? No one really knows for certain - not even The Mooch himself. But rest assured, he said, it’s going to be big.
“We have absolutely no idea what the Scaramucci Post is, and neither do you,” he told a reporter from The Hill newspaper who asked him to describe his publication in 10 seconds. “But we launched it today and we launched with great fanfare, and so we’ll have to see how the whole thing unfolds.”
Also I just asked him to explain the Scaramucci Post in 10 secs and he was like actually we have no idea what it is yet 🙃 pic.twitter.com/lCyGJXG04u
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) October 3, 2017
Scaramucci unveiled the venture at the Hunt and Fish Club, a posh restaurant near Times Square that the 53-year-old dabbler co-founded. The event was initially advertised as a party, but Scaramucci made a last-minute decision to turn it into a roundtable discussion on how to “move forward” following the mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Reporters gathered for a quasi-press conference in the restaurant’s softly-lit basement, which they quickly dubbed the “Mooch Cave.” There, Scaramucci offered a smattering of details that gave a sort of impressionistic idea of what his namesake project might be.
The Scaramucci Post will have no website, for one thing. Instead, it will distribute content on social media platforms with a focus on reaching millennials, Scaramucci said.
But the Scaramucci Post will have reporters — eventually. Right now, he is working with “limited personnel,” as he told reporters from Barstool Sports, a men’s lifestyle website. “But we’re going to turn it into a big enterprise.”
“Maybe we’ll be the Barstool Sports of the political discourse,” he said in the livestreamed discussion. He described an “open seam in the society right now” with increasingly shrill news coming from the political left and right. He said the Scaramucci Post will “fill that seam,” somehow.
The Scaramucci Post will have advertisers, he told McClatchy, and the publication will begin with a focus on video interviews. There will be people “from the left on this as well as people from the right on this,” he said.
The Scaramucci Post will also have a tagline: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
There will be news, too. The Scaramucci Post will have “plain, vanilla news that is frankly unfiltered,” as well as “components of this that are think-tank in their orientation” and “parts that are policy-related,” he told McClatchy.
One thing’s for sure, though: the Scaramucci Post will not be Breitbart News, the right-wing nationalist outlet run by former White House chief strategist and Scaramucci nemesis Stephen K. Bannon. The Mooch said his publication would avoid “picking sides” on the political spectrum.
Before Monday night’s launch, Scaramucci was active on social media, teasing his new media outlet. A video he posted last week offered additional details - but little clarity — about the publication.
The Scaramucci Post will be “the center lane in a two-lane highway,” he told viewers. It will discuss what is “right and wrong in a society right now, as opposed to what is left and right,” present “data-dependent arguments about policy” and “help people decipher what is real news.”
Clad in a blue and yellow “Scaramucci Post” T-shirt and looking into the camera, Scaramucci spoke in metaphor.
“For us here at the Scaramucci Post, we sort of feel that the pendulum on the clock split and went two ways. And so one part of the pendulum is sitting way far on the right and the other part of the pendulum is sitting way far on the left, and it has left an opportunity to be in the center lane discussing with the American people what’s going on in the society and how we can make the society better.”
“That’s the most important thing,” he concluded, “making the world better for our children and our grandchildren.”
He then dropped a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. “Please tune in. Thank you.”