It's official: moments ago the much anticipated departure of (now former) White House press secretary and communications director, Sean Spicer took place, when according to the NYT, Spicer resigned on Friday morning, "telling President Trump he vehemently disagreed with the appointment of New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as communications director."



Mr. Trump offered Mr. Scaramucci the job at 10 a.m. The president requested that Mr. Spicer stay on, but Mr. Spicer told Mr. Trump that he believed the appointment was a major mistake, according to person with direct knowledge of the exchange.

News of Spicer's resignation was promptly greeted with trolling by many...

R.I.P. Sean Spicer as White House Press Secretary, 2017 - 2017 pic.twitter.com/y7QmJAroYH — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 21, 2017

... including Maxine Waters:

Congratulations Sean Spicer. You've got more guts than Jeff Sessions! — Maxine Waters (@MaxineWaters) July 21, 2017

To all those who bought the "No" contract: congratulations: it's payout time:

Subsequently, it was reported that Spicer's position as press secretary would be taken over by Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Meanwhile, as noted above, Trump appointed former SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director.

JUST IN: President Trump has offered Anthony Scaramucci the job of White House Communications Dir.; Scaramucci has accepted. - @JTSantucci — ABC News (@ABC) July 21, 2017

Scaramucci has been a vocal supporter of the president, having served in a top financial advisory role on Trump’s campaign. He has been an ardent defender of the president in television interviews.

.@DonaldJTrumpJr is a virtuous and honorable man. Virtue means the courage to act with integrity. Don does that everyday. #stopwitchunt — Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 9, 2017

He was also the subject of the recent hit piece from CNN that the network was forced to retract and apologize to him for, a piece that inaccurately accused him of being under multiple investigations—he is not under any—for “meetings” that never happened with Russian bankers. Three senior CNN editorial officials resigned over the story, amounting to what is still developing into one of the biggest scandals in journalistic history.

While news of Scaramucci's appointment first broke on Thursday night, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus tried to scuttle the appointment of Scaramucci due to a reported long-running feud with him, according to Breitbart, which adds that Steve Bannon, the ex-Executive Chairman of Breitbart News now the White House chief strategist, also objected to the Scaramucci appointment.

Bannon and Priebus have an alliance inside the White House where they are frequently at loggerheads with the “West Wing Democrats” like National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, Jared Kusher, Ivanka Trump, and others.

Those opposed to the Scaramucci appointment did not succeed.

Reince and Bannon fought hard to stop Scaramucci going in. But the President made up his own mind. — Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) July 21, 2017