US President-elect Donald Trump is open-minded says his adviser Anthony Scaramucci | Timothy A. Clary/Getty Images Trump officials ask which country will be next to exit EU Outgoing US ambassador says Trump transition officials posed the question in call to EU leadership.

In a call with EU leadership, Trump transition officials asked which country would be next to leave the bloc, the departing U.S. ambassador to the EU, Anthony Gardner, said Friday. He suggested the call pointed to a Euroskeptic outlook within the new administration.

Gardner, meeting with reporters just days before his departure from his post on orders from President-elect Donald Trump, said the question from the incoming administration was "reflective of the perception" of the EU — an impression that Gardner said was wrong and contrary to American interests. He was not on the call himself but heard about the exchange from EU officials.

In his briefing, Gardner lamented the influence on the Trump administration of Brexit champion Nigel Farage, the former United Kingdom Independence Party leader.

"For us to be encouraging Brexit is the height of folly," Gardner said.

Gardner said the American embassy had sent briefing papers to Trump’s transition team, a customary practice during any change in administration. He said he had not talked directly to transition officials.

Pressed about the phone call between the transition team, Gardner said: “That was the one question that was asked. It’s reflective. This is reflective of the general perception of the EU and it’s a misperception. It’s a perception that Nigel Farage is presumably, you know, disseminating in Washington. And it’s a caricature.”

In declining to name who participated on the call, or even which EU institution had received it, Gardner said the Trump team’s views on Europe — that the EU is dysfunctional and unraveling — were already clear in Brussels.

“It’s not a surprise, right,” he said. “That’s what is the mentality of this team: this thing is falling apart. Who’s next?”

Gardner spoke on the record and frankly about his concerns about the transition in Washington, and said he would continue to press the importance of U.S.-EU relations once he leaves for a short stint in academia, in Bruges and Florence, before working in the private sector in the U.K.,where his family lives, by September.

"I might as well go out in a ball of flames," he said.