Briefing with ms. Huckabee sanders and incoming director Anthony Scaramucci. Its 50 minutes. Ms. Huckabee sanders good afternoon. Mark the last day of made in america week this afternoon the president will welcome several living survivors of the attack on u. S. S. Arizona at pearl harbor and their families. Other events this week have focused mainly on products and goods bearing the highly esteemed made in america label. Truly the most prized thing to have come out of our country have been the brave men and women who have risked their lives protecting the freedom of americans and our allies around the globe. Just a few minutes ago at 2 00 the president signed an executive order that will ensure the men and women of the greatest military in the world have the ships, aircraft, vehicles, and other supplies they will need to keep us safe in the years ahead. This order commissions the first ever whole government assessment of Americas Industrial base, marking the First Time Since president eisenhower that an american president is investing personal attention into the health of the United StatesDefense Industrial base. President trump is committed to maintaining the secure supply chain and robust work force that will support our nations heroes for decades to come. Next week well be heighting american heroes like world war ii veterans, First Responders who keep our communities safe every day, and the boys and girls who will grow up to be the next generation of american leaders. While im on the topic of men and women who protect us i also want to note the president commended the house yesterday for voting to reauthorize the department of Homeland Security for the first time. The Homeland Security authorization act also authorizes u. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the first time. Secretary kelly has already made tremendous progress in fulfilling the president s promise to end illegal immigration and fully enforce the laws of the United States. This bill reflects the president s strong commitment to ensuring that progress continues. Also on the hill of course Senate Republicans this week continued to work toward our shared goal of saving the American People from the disaster of obamacare. Earlier this afternoon, Vice President pence and Secretary Health and Human Services hosted representatives from several grass roots organizations, calling on the senate to take action on health care legislation. As the president has said inax is simply not an option. These groups want lawmakers to know their members want them to follow through on their promise to the American People. Finally, id like to read a statement from the president on the resignation of press Secretary Sean Spicer. Im grateful for seans work on behalf of my administration and the American People. I wish him continued success as he moves on to pursue new opportunities. Just look at his Great Television ratings. Sean will continue to serve the administration through august. The president has also appointed Anthony Scaramucci as Communications Director and i have a statement on anthonys appointment as well. Anthony is a person i have Great Respect for. He will be an important addition to this administration. Hes ban great supporter and will now help implement key aspects of our agenda while leading the communications team. We have accomplished so much and we are being given credit for so little. The good news is the people get it even if the media doesnt. Id like to bring anthony up to say a few words and take a few questions and, as always, ill be back after that to answer ny followup questions. Mr. Scaramucci thank you very much. Ill be very brief and make my remarks informal and then take questions from everybody. First off id like to announce formally that Sarah Huckabee sanders is press oh, you cant hear me . Sorry. Better . Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be the press secretary. And so you can congratulate her after the session. Still cant hear me . No sound . Ok. Better now . Ill start over. [laughter] mr. Scaramucci you guys heard me in the front, right . What did i say, john . Sarah will be press secretary. Right . So congratulations. [applause] and, so, i want to say a couple things. I want to thank personally sean spicer not only on behalf of myself, the president , the administration, but sean is a true american patriot. Hes a military serviceman. Hes got a great family. And hes done an amazing job. This is obviously a difficult situation to be in and i applaud his efforts here and i love the guy and i wish him well. I hope he goes on to make a tremendous amount of money. As it relates to me in this position, im going to spend a couple weeks getting to know the people here. And im going to be as coordinated as i can with the people inside the west wing. Theres been some speculation in the press about being right so i just want to talk about that real quickly. Reince and i have been personal friends for six years. We are a little bit like brothers where we rough each other up once in a while, which is totally normal for brothers. A lot of people in here have brothers so you get that. He is a friend. He brought me into the political system. He brought me into the Republican National committee network. He introduced me to governor walker. We spent many times together socially. A lot of people are not aware of this but after the romney ampaign, i invited reince into skybridge. I think it reflects poorly on reince he didnt take my offer and come in to be our chief operating officer. I say that in jest, obviously. So what i want you guys to know, my first call this morning, i met with him before we sat in the oval office and we are committed as True Professionals to the team and the process of getting the administrations message out. I think that is one of the big goals for us. I said during the transition, ill say it up here. I think theres been at times a disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president and the way some of you, perhaps, see the president. I would say the American People probably see the president the way i do but we want to get that message out there and to use a wall street expression there might be an arbitrage spread between how well we are doing and how well some of you guys think were doing and were going to work hard to close that spread. Im done. Ill take the questions. Number one, what we have seen from this administration so far is the president being his own messenger very frequently. As you know, trouble for the communications staff. How do you expect to get this white house back on track . I take slight issue with the question. The white house is on track and i think were doing a really good job. We have a whole list of things i didnt want to come out here with our list of accomplishments and start a whole advertisement informercial right now. I really just wanted to talk about Personnel Movement and how were thinking about things. I think were doing an amazing job. The president , himself, is always going to be the president. I was in the oval office with him earlier today. We were talking about letting him be himself. Letting him express his full identity. I think he has some of the best political instincts in the world and perhaps in history when you think about it. He started his political ascent to two years and two months ago and he has done a phenomenal job for the American People. People i grew up with, they so identify with the president and they love him. Well get that message out. My second question. A little bit about how you plan to handle any potential conflict of interest and how was the offer made to you . Was it by was it extended when you were here . I dont think it is fair to the president to go into the exact conversation because i want to keep those conversations between me and him private but we talked a little bit about the white house. We talked a little bit about our personal relationship. Then we extended the offer he extended the offer to me and i said ill do it because i want to serve the president. A lot of family members have served the american military. Unfortunately my generation, born in 1954, i did not serve. I filled out the selective service. That is one of the regrets of my life so this is an opportunity for me to serve the country. I love the president. I obviously love the country. Look at my Life Experience here in the country. And so its an honor. [question inaudible] so i have worked with the office of governmental ethics to take care of all of my business conflicts. My start date is in a couple weeks so there is a 100 totally cleansed and clean and i dont see an issue and the Government Ethics Office doesnt nor does the white house. Something i want to say about this, though. When you are bringing American Business people into the administration that have had some level of success in society they have to unencumber themselves. It is just a very interesting thing. Its somewhat ironic. You want to go serve the country and the first thing is to take on this megaopportunity cost by getting rid of all of your assets. Im willing to do that because i love the country. Anthony, youve been watching this white house somewhat from the side and im sure you have your own perspective on what youve seen. T quite as you what is the first thing youre going to change to try to right this ship and put it on course . Again, i take issue with that. I think the ship is going in the right direction. I think weve got to just radio signal the direction very, very clearly. I like the team. Let me rephrase that. I love the team. And so im an incrementalist. Most entrepreneurs youll find are incrementalists. To Say Something overly bold or dramatic is unfair. What good entrepreneurs do is they start the day and they go through the process. The navy seals would tell you if you want to eat an elephant you got to eat it one elephant at a time. Sarah and i are going to do that together. Anthony, did you have any hesitation taking this job knowing it might cause some friction in that it might lead to sean leaving, which is whats going to happen, and the two are at least somewhat coincidental . And did you have any hesitation about how you would relate to the rest of the white house staff if you came in under those circumstances . Mr. Scaramucci ok, well listen. Im a business person and so what happens in business a lot of the times is you have some rotation in personnel. As youre making changes and you have lifestyle choices people are also making. I would love to have sean here. Sean decided he thought it would be better to go. And for me, as it relates to sean it speaks volumes to who he is as a human being and a team player. His attitude is if anthony is coming in, let me clear the slate for anthony. I appreciate that about sean and i love him for it, but i dont have any friction with sean, i dont have any friction with reince. This is the white house of the United States of america. Were serving the president. I want to make sure our cultural template is that we put the president s agenda first, which is perfect for the American People. So if we have a little friction inside the white house as a result of that, its ok. We can live with that. Im a business person and im used to dealing with friction. Was it disappointing that you did not land a post here from the getgo . Mr. Scaramucci again, as an entrepreneur you have to be accustomed to setbacks. Ive had a series of setbacks in my life which i wrote about. I wrote a best selling book. If you dont believe me you can come into my basement and ill show you every copy. I am very honest about mistakes i made and setbacks ive had. Was i disappointed . Yes. I said that candidly that i was disappointed. But i love the president and im very, very loyal to the president. I love the mission that the president has. Since the early days of the campaign, when i went to these rallies and i saw the love that the people had for the president , and a lot of i grew up in the middle class. So there is a struggle out there. I feel that struggle and i have empathy for that and i want to make it better for the American People. Ill try to get there. I promise. It was felt the president needed a clean slate. How does that go with a white house in the right direction and how badly does the president need a win on health care . Mr. Scaramucci here is one problem with the way our society is working. Right now we are micro managing the seconds of the new cycle. I predicted the president will get a win in health care. That is my honest prediction just because i see him in operation over the last 20 plus years. The president has really good karma. Ok . And the world turns back to him. He is a wonderful human being and as members of congress get uncomfortable with him theyll let him lead them to the right thing for the American People. Well get health care done and i think well get tax reform done. Whatever else is on the president s agenda well work very studiously to make it happen. The cameras are back. Will you commit now to holding regular on camera briefings . With hair and makeup, ill consider it. I did a lot of hair and makeup, john. Really. This is the press secretary. Im up here today only because i think its the first day we made a mutual decision that it would make sense for me to come up and try to answer as many questions as possible. The answer is, we may. I have to talk to the president. I like consulting with the president before making decisions like this. Reporter one of the president s strongest supporters for a while now. But does he know what you said about him in 2015 when he said he was a hack politician . Mr. Scaramucci he brings it up every 15 seconds. One of the biggest mistakes i made because i was an inexperienced person and politics and was supporting another candidate. He should have never said that about him. Mr. President , if youre listening,i personally apologized for the 50th time for saying that. Here is the wonderful thing about the news media that was three minutes of my life, he has never forgotten it, you have never forgotten it. I hope some day, mr. President , you will forget it. Lets go to the next question. Reporter a question about credibility, things that have been said in this room. We dont have a variation of what i asked sean spicers first day is it your commitment to give Accurate Information to the best of your ability from that podium . Mr. Scaramucci i almost feel i dont have to answer that question. You can tell from me and my body language what kind of person i am. Reporter was reince involved in offering you this position . Was he consulted by the president ahead of time . Mr. Scaramucci yes, he was consulted. There was a lot of speculation about the timing and so forth. We are a team. Reporter job was offered . Mr. Scaramucci some of this stuff, it is unnecessary to go into the granular detail. It is like that book the circle, you have a camera on you. When youre having conversations. I dont think its fair to the president. Heres what i would tell you. Im a team player. Ive played team sports my whole life, at least as a kid. I believe you have to subordinate yourself to the greater good of the team. If teammates dont have disagreements about certain things, they are not going to get the championship. You have got to get together and mix it up a little bit from time to time. I have no problem mixing up with these guys. I love these guys, i respect to these guys. Is it perfect everything ok . Whose life is perfect every single day . Heres the commitment im making to you and the American People and the president , im here to serve him in the west wing. Reporter you admitted to regular televised briefings and having a transparent relationship with the press . Are you committed to that . Mr. Scaramucci again, im obviously committed to being transparent, because im standing here, but i would like to talk it over with the president. We have a new press secretary and i would like to talk it over with her. We will get back to you on it hisen, im standing right here and ill im trying to answer every question. Go ahead. Reporter the president has been feeling under siege with the russia investigation. Do you feel he was being exposed and that he did not have people coming to his defense . Is that part of the reason we have you here . Mr. Scaramucci i dont think so. Not at all. One of the things im doing today is i sort of have my white House Counsel briefing before have the press briefing. I want to limit my remarks related to the russian situation and things like that. Here is what i will tell you about the president and he is the most competitive person ive ever met. Ive seen this guy throwing a dead spiral through a tire. Ive seen him at Madison Square garden sending file shots and swishing them. He sinks threefoot putts. I dont see him as a guy who was ever under siege. He is a very competitive person. Theres a lot of incoming into the white house. The president is aware. Ok . What we are going to do is we will do a lot of winning. Reporter in terms of the relationship that the press operations had, they made a habit of calling stories they dont like fake news, calling errors is that the kind of relationship you want with Media Outlets . M scaramucci ill speak for myself right now. It is my first day on the job. I want to get familiar with everybody and get direction from the president. I had a personal i