This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Donald Trump’s critic turned communications guru admitted on Saturday that he is purging his Twitter account of political views likely to embarrass his boss.

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“Full transparency: I’m deleting old tweets,” Anthony Scaramucci posted. “Past views evolved & shouldn’t be a distraction. I serve @POTUS agenda & that’s all that matters.”

He added: “The politics of “gotcha” are over. I have a thick skin and we’re moving on to @POTUS agenda serving the American people.”

Scaramucci’s appointment was announced on Friday, setting off a domino effect at the White House as press secretary Sean Spicer resigned and Sarah Huckabee Sanders replaced him. Nicknamed “the Mooch”, the 53-year-old is a Wall Street financier with a pugnacious style and experience as a Fox News pundit but little communications pedigree.

The communications director’s debut press briefing earned generally positive reviews for style. Asked a potentially awkward question about a 2015 TV interview in which he called Trump “another hack politician”, Scaramucci elicited laughter by replying: “He brings it up every 15 seconds, OK? So, Mr President, if you’re listening, I personally apologise for the 50th time for saying that.”

On Saturday morning, Trump entered into the fun, tweeting: “In all fairness to Anthony Scaramucci, he wanted to endorse me 1st, before the Republican Primaries started, but didn’t think I was running!”

Still, the new director of communications, like his boss a garrulous New Yorker, has cause to regret some past statements on Twitter, where he follows 168,000 accounts, an unusually high number. Trump, by contrast, follows just 45, while Sanders follows 2,424. Scaramucci joined the site in March 2009 and has racked up 16,000 tweets. Some do not sit well with the Trump agenda.

He began hitting the delete button on Friday, binning a tweet that praised 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for staying out of the Trump “spectacle” and another that said former House speaker Newt Gingrich showed “no judgment” by backing the Trump campaign.

Also gone was a 2012 tweet in which Scaramucci praised Hillary Clinton, who remains a Trump obsession, as “incredibly competent”.

He also posted: “I like Hillary. Have to go with the best athlete. We need to turn this around.” In October 2015, he predicted that the former Florida governor Jeb Bush “will make a great president”.

There were more. Trump has described climate change as a “hoax” and has presided over a succession of directives and Environmental Protection Agency changes that have alarmed green groups. Last year, Scaramucci wrote: “You can take steps to combat climate change without crippling the economy. The fact many people still believe CC is a hoax is disheartening.”

The millionaire from working class roots on Long Island has also tweeted about immigration and Islam, two Trump national security obsessions.

“Walls don’t work,” he wrote. “Never have never will.” Scaramucci also opined that the “overwhelming majority see Islam as a religion of peace, want to live in multiracial/ethnic/faith democracies”.

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And in 2012, he tweeted: “We (the USA) has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s guns. Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls.”

On Friday Dana Loesch, national spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, which staunchly supports Trump, tweeted that the president had made a “concerning” choice in Scaramucci, given his “contrary position” on gun ownership.

This tweet was removed and the NRA distanced itself from the comment.

Scaramucci is not the first public figure to find his Twitter history under scrutiny. When the South African comedian Trevor Noah was hired as Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show, he was criticised for having made tasteless jokes about Jews and women.

One user who seems entirely unrepentant is Trump himself, despite Clinton having once memorably tweeted at him: “Delete your account.”