To some, former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci serves merely as an amusing footnote in American political history. To others, perhaps a cautionary tale on the inherent dangers of an overabundance of candor inside the DC Beltway. Regardless of your opinion of the man, no one can claim his brief tenure in the West Wing was forgettable.

Scaramucci’s brash rise and fall in the political spotlight is backdropped by a commander in chief whose relationship with the media can — at best — be described as “contentious.” Mind you, President Donald Trump’s de facto war on the Fourth Estate isn’t a tactic Scaramucci supports in the least, according to the man himself. Quite the opposite: he feels de-escalation would be best for all involved.

That’s not the first or only break Scaramucci has had with the president for whom he was responsible for shoring up and promoting the American agenda. Another notable fissure is the Trump administration’s erstwhile family separation policy. And, when pressed on the issue of honesty, Scaramucci recently conceded to CNN’s John Berman that President Trump is indeed a “liar.” However, as part of the same interview, he also described an “entertainment aspect” to the president’s falsehoods and dismissed the concern as “existential nonsense” to those who see Donald Trump as a long-awaited advocate.

“You should probably dial down the lying because you don’t need to. You’re doing a great job for the country. So dial that down, and you’ll be doing a lot better.”

Anthony Scaramucci clearly has not allowed his ouster to change his forthright nature, nor has it changed his support for President Donald Trump and his agenda. Scaramucci’s recently published book Trump: The Blue-Collar President explores billionaire Trump’s seemingly counter-intuitive ability to identify with working-class Americans. In making the media rounds, The Mooch sat down to talk about the president, the nation, and the future.

A Republican, a Libertarian (basically) and a Democrat stroll up to a book party about ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ ⁦@DeidreScaramuc2⁩ ⁦@billmaher⁩ ⁦@moochandthemrs⁩ patriots first partisans last! ???????? pic.twitter.com/1RUoOA2nWF — Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) November 1, 2018

DM: You must be a little jet lagged with this book tour.

AS: It’s hard to sell books, I’ll tell you that.

DM: Really? Because I’ve been seeing you in the media constantly lately.

AS: We sold a ton of books. I think it will be a New York Times bestseller this week because we sold about 16,000 books, but I was chock-a-block all week with almost 20 media appearances. The most fun I had was on Bill Maher. I had Bill at my book party last night. Let me tell you something, this guy is a funny son of a bi**h, very funny.

DM: Mentioning the book, I had one thing that confused me in that with Donald Trump, the president and entrepreneur, you feel that he connects with working-class Americans.

AS: Did you read any of the book?

DM: I’ve only gotten snippets.

AS: Well I did a ton of homework on the book related to the Trump family, his father Fred Trump, how he got started, and what Donald J. Trump was doing from 18 when he left military school, through his college years, and into his early 30s. So from about 22 to 30, what was he doing? His father had him working on construction sites, installing sheetrock, taking coins out of vending machines at the apartment complexes he built in the Jamaica Plains area…

I tell one story about a family that he went to collect rent from. Trump was 25-years-old and Fred Trump was there. The father of the family says ‘I’m sorry, I lost my job and can’t make the rent payment this month.’ Fred says, ‘I’ll let this slide, you’ve been a great tenant and I’m sure you’ll figure this out and can pay us then.’ I went to interview this family, the Caruana family. They remembered the story and shared it with me. I actually verified with the president that happened with him and his dad.

I grew up in a blue-collar family, my dad was an hourly worker, he operated a heavy crane and a payloader for the same company for 42 years. Then I went to some fancy schools and did reasonably very well, so I have this bandwidth of understanding of what happened. My family had high wages for my father and we lived in the middle class. My dad’s job today is down 32 percent in real economic terms.

"Exposing his lies and explaining them to people … that's probably not going to beat the president." Anthony Scaramucci explains why, and shares what he believes is the smarter strategy for Democrats to take to combat President Trump. https://t.co/nyHoI8XllS — MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 28, 2018

DM: I hear that, but what I’m trying to reconcile is connecting the private jet to a coal worker in West Virginia. How does that reflect on people from where he is today?

AS: I don’t know how to describe this to you, but for whatever reason, he has a grounding with these people. He is able to relate to them for whatever reason. While people don’t see him as an empathetic guy, but he has empathy for those people.

He has a soft spot for a guy who has to put a lunch pail together and go outside and work. You can see it. I did 26 campaign stops with him and I wrote about one of them. I wrote about the people that we met on the stop, what they were like, and what he was like with them. So a blue-collar president is about the connection.