In a new book, short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci escalates multiple long-running battles with erstwhile Washington colleagues while chiseling a heroic likeness of Donald Trump with inside tales of the president’s secret wisdom and wit.

A copy of the book, Trump, the Blue-Collar President, to be published on 23 October, was obtained by the Guardian.

The list of characters Scaramucci trashes anew includes current chief of staff John Kelly, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Kelly is “ineffective” and suffers from “personal insecurity”, Scaramucci writes; Priebus is a rat; and Bannon is a hypocrite and a weirdo.

Trump, meanwhile, is an unheralded maestro who coaxes analysis and insights from various advisers which he then renders as coherent policy.

“I know him well, and I believe he has an intellect that is uniquely suited to the presidency,” Scaramucci writes of Trump. “He never let anyone know he was gathering information to make policy out of it… So he made it seem like he was chatting, talking economics and trade policy the way you’d talk about the New York Mets. Then he synthesized all the responses into one position, letting in the good bits and keeping out the bad.”

Since leaving the White House in 2017, Scaramucci, a New York native and Harvard law school graduate widely known as “the Mooch”, has resumed work on Wall Street, appeared frequently on television and traveled the country staging politics-themed town halls.

Despite his background as a hedge-funder, Scaramucci describes himself as a street-hustling “guido” well-positioned to judge the blue-collar appeal of Trump, who was a millionaire by age eight thanks to an inheritance that ultimately amounted to nine figures, the New York Times recently reported. Trump simply understands the common man and delivers an “authenticity” other politicians lack, Scaramucci says.

Scaramucci served just 10 days as communications director before being fired by a newly installed Kelly after Scaramucci gave a blunt late-night phone interview to the New Yorker in which he said, among other things: “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock.”

In his book, Scaramucci avoids repeating that charge, but he keeps up his campaign against Bannon, whom he calls “megalomaniacal” and “one of the biggest hypocrites in a town lousy with them.”

“It was as though he was borderline delusional, and I’m not saying that in the heat of some late-night phone call,” Scaramucci writes of Bannon. “His was a power-dream fantasy.”

I know him well, and I believe he has an intellect that is uniquely suited to the presidency Scaramucci on Trump

Scaramucci’s beef with Kelly, whom he has previously called “General Jackass,” is less personal but plenty alive. When he arrived at the White House in July 2017, the retired four-star Marine general was charged with cleaning house, and one of his first acts was to deep-six Scaramucci. Scaramucci has apparently not forgotten.

“His personal insecurity has proven to be a poor match with the self-confident, gregarious president,” Scaramucci writes of Kelly, who he says is “incapable of recruiting a compatible staff to work with him”.

“I’m hopeful that the president will choose someone as his next chief who actually likes him.”

Scaramucci has known Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, longer, since they crossed paths during the 2012 Mitt Romney presidential campaign. They had been friendly, Scaramucci writes – until Priebus decided to join forces with Bannon to push Scaramucci out of the White House.

“Reince sold himself out,” Scaramucci writes. “He joined the rodent family in order to survive.”

The tension among the three men produces one of the most memorable scenes in the book, in which Scaramucci describes Bannon and Priebus accompanying him to the Oval Office in an effort to stop his elevation as communications director.

“The president sat behind the Resolute desk, his jaw set and his eyes a steely blue,” Scaramucci recalls. “[Trump] then looked back at Reince. The president’s expression was one of absolute disgust.

“‘I don’t want any of your taint on Anthony’, he said.

“It was war. Full on.”

At the end of the intra-West-Wing war, none of the combatants was left standing and all three men left the White House. But lest there were any doubt, Scaramucci is proud to be an emeritus member of Team Trump, branding himself in his book as “Fired But Loyal.”

“From my current vantage point, I might be in a better place to help the president than when I was on the inside,” he writes. “The way I look at it, I’m still in the orbit, but far enough away to have an objective view.”