2020 Elections Scaramucci disinvited from Florida GOP fundraiser for bashing Trump's 'racially charged' attacks

The Palm Beach County GOP disinvited Anthony Scaramucci from addressing its annual fundraising event after the short-lived White House communications director criticized President Trump’s “racially charged” tweets saying four members of Congress who are women of color should leave the United States.

“He suggested the president’s comments were racist and that he was becoming a racist. Our board was infuriated,” said Michael A. Barnett, the Republican Party chairman in the county, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago getaway.


“We believe the tweets were not racist, the president is not racist and that Scaramucci’s comments were unfair,” Barnett, who is African American, said.

“I am sorry that I was canceled,” he told POLITICO. “Mike Barnett must like and condone racist comments. Someone with more courage and less political expediency would call it for what it is and ask it to stop.”

Barnett made his comments to POLITICO on Thursday morning after emailing Scaramucci that he was no longer invited to speak at the Aug. 15 event, called “Lobsterfest,” becasue of the comments.

"I don't think the president is a racist," Scaramucci first told the BBC on Tuesday. "But here's the thing, if you continue to say and act in that manner, then we all have to look at him and say, ‘OK, well, maybe you weren't a racist, but now you're turning into one.‘"

Scaramucci has repeated his criticisms on Twitter and in cable news interviews, including a CNN appearance Thursday morning in which he theorized Trump’s attacks on the four congresswomen — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan— could propel the president to a second term.

The TV appearances and direct criticisms, according to a longtime Trump adviser, have left the president “furious” with Scaramucci. It’s not the first time. Scaramucci lasted just 10 days as White House communications director and was fired after crudely criticizing Trump loyalists.

Now that Scaramucci has been disinvited from the Aug. 15 Palm Beach County GOP fundraiser, two longtime Trump allies remain: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and political operative Roger Stone, who was ordered by a judge Tuesday to stop using social media and to stop discussing a criminal case against him. Stone refused comment; Gaetz couldn’t be reached.

The Palm Beach County Republican Party is so sensitive to criticisms of the president that members were worried about inviting South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham to deliver a keynote address at a Lincoln Day dinner fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in March.

“Graham had been critical of the president and there was the same concern,” Barnett said, noting that Graham didn’t make a scene. But Scaramucci made it clear that he could be a problem.

“We felt we had no choice,” Barnett said.

