White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Credit:AP Then he started raving. Referring to White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, Scaramucci said, "Rience is a f---ing paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac," who had been trying to "c--- block" him. "I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own c---," he said, speaking of Trump's chief strategist. "I'm not trying to build my own brand off the f---ing strength of the President. I'm here to serve the country."

Representing warring factions: White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, left, and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus in April. Credit:AP It is impossible to explain this ugly nonsense without sketching the backdrop. Priebus and Bannon represent warring factions within the White House. Priebus was once the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was appointed chief of staff at the urging of establishment Republicans who hoped he might keep Trump's excesses in check. He is now thoroughly mistrusted by Trump. Bannon is considered the mastermind behind Trump's political rise. But, where Trump has little discernible political conviction, Bannon is a hard-right ethno-nationalist, godfather to the alt-right movement. In the early days of the administration he was often portrayed as the the puppet master to Trump's marionette. Trump has been reported at times as being both resentful, and mistrustful, of Bannon. Just as he did in business, Trump relies on a close personal inner circle, which in the White House is led by his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

Resentful of his poor media coverage and low polling and infuriated by the endless leaking from executive staff, Trump appointed Scaramucci as his head of communications earlier this month, in part to undermine Priebus. "White House officials and outside allies say the President is revelling in Scaramucci's campaign against Priebus - undertaken through cable news appearances and a billow of tweets, some of which were subsequently deleted - and is thrilled to see a top staffer placing a publicly bombastic emphasis on White House leaks to the press, which consistently infuriate the President," the Daily Beast has reported. One staffer told the Beast: "The President specifically gave him the green light to go after Reince." He ended the call by saying: "Yeah, let me go, though, because I've gotta start tweeting some s--- to make this guy [Priebus] crazy." Scaramucci's attack on Priebus was not only unprecedented, and perhaps unhinged, but often absurd.

He accused Priebus of leaking personal financial information, which actually appeared on Scaramucci's publicly available disclosure statement; he suggested that leaking was "treason"; he boasted he had called FBI contacts to encourage an investigation (a move that would be illegal) and finally he rang up a cable news network to deny the contents and context of his conversation and of a bunch of his own tweets. If all this reminds you of anyone, well yes, Scaramucci is the embodiment of his boss. Like Trump, he has no experience in politics and no apparent understanding or interest in its norms and processes. He appears to hold an unwavering faith that his own world view represents universal truth, at least until it changes over the course of the day. So what does it all mean?

Well, a few things. It shows that, faced with a war between two factions that was crippling his administration, Trump's solution has been to introduce a third force and order it into the fray. And, while an exhausted press corps and public are trying to interpret Scaramucci's attacks, what are they ignoring? What many are no longer focused on are Trump's ongoing attempts to force his Attorney-General Jeff Sessions either to resign or to sack the independent prosecutor investigating Trump and his campaign, Robert Mueller. Trump appears to be incensed not only that the investigation continues to call his election victory into question, but that it is closing in on Trump's business dealings and tax returns.

Second, and perhaps of greater direct import to millions of Americans, is the ongoing failure of Republicans in Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare. This has been the party's prime policy objective for seven years, and the key "day one" promise of the Trump campaign. Though they control both houses, Republicans are now hopelessly divided over how - or whether - to repeal the legislation, to replace it, or to simply sabotage it. The independent Congressional Budget Office estimates they are effectively choosing between stripping healthcare from 18 million people, 22 million people or 30 million people. Each proposal is accordingly unpopular, but regarded as crucial by the shrinking band of Trump true believers. Loading

And no one is talking about Trump's address to a rally of Boy Scouts in which he rambled on about his election victory. Though the Boy Scouts only got around to making a public apology for Trump's partisan address on Thursday afternoon, the speech was way back on Monday, which seems like years ago now.