Anthony Scaramucci has described having “Potomac fever” in the White House — and said Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick have it as well.

Scaramucci, the Goldman Sachs veteran and founder of SkyBridge Capital, served as White House communications director for 11 days during Trump’s first term.

He told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick that he arrived in Washington with a “level of naiveté.”

“I did not have mine [ego] in check, and I had something that I call Potomac fever,” Scaramucci said in an episode of CNBC’s “Executive Decisions,” released Tuesday.

“Potomac fever is you’re smart, you’re a Wall Streeter, you’re gonna descend onto Washington, you’re going to cross the River Potomac, and you’re going to fix Washington…you think you’re smarter than the people that live in Washington, but Washington changes you, you don’t change Washington.”

“One of the great symptoms of Potomac fever is you don’t know you have it. Bessent has it. Lutnick has it. You’re tying your ego to the motorcade, the insider thing. I’m on the inside with the Secret Service protection. You’re not, and it is an aphrodisiac. It is a seductive force if you’re not careful,” he said.

Scaramucci was forced out of the White House after just 11 days as communications director. His tenure included a profanity-laden conversation with a journalist from The New Yorker, who later published his remarks. The brevity made him a figure of mockery.

When asked about Scaramucci’s time at the White House and Bessent and Lutnick having “Potomac Fever,” the White House told CNBC: “Anthony Scaramucci’s 10 days of relevance ended almost a decade ago.”

Don’t chase the ‘coolest job’

Scaramucci also described his career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, where he was fired “due to incompetence” but then rehired.

“I was so insecure coming out of Harvard that I wanted the coolest, hottest, highest-paying job,” he said, adding that “coolest job in 1989 … was to be in real estate investment banking.”

“That was really stupid. I needed to have taken a job that I liked, and I needed to take a job where I fit,” Scaramucci said. “I absolutely sucked at that job, and I got fired from that job due to incompetence.”

Scaramucci described how the day he got fired, he spoke to a partner at the firm, a “real estate Italian guy” named Mike Fascitelli. Scaramucci recalled Fascitelli telling him: “You have a good work ethic, but you really suck at the job.”

Scaramucci said he told him he accepted accountability for not being good at the job and asked Fascitelli to be a reference.

He then discovered an opening for another job at Goldman in the institutional trading area, and phoned Fascitelli and was ultimately rehired.

“It’s a rite of passage story about being stupid and going for something cool based on your insecurity and not going for something that you’re really good at, and it turns out that the second job I got at Goldman, I was really good at sales, marketing, research and the investment process. I was way better at that than investment banking,” he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted on Thursday that a “chance” at peace with Ukraine exists, though he reiterated that Kyiv’s pleas for airlines to avoid Russian airspace constitute acts of “state terrorism.”

“Ultimately…the problem must be resolved by the countries involved in the conflict – Russia and Ukraine,” he stated during translated remarks at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, a city in Eastern Russia. “Is there a chance [at peace]? In my view, yes, there is.”

Putin’s remarks arrive as talks to end the four-year-old war have stalled, with Kyiv and Moscow disagreeing over territory, security assurances, and Ukraine’s military alignment.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Thursday in statements reported by Reuters that he sees a “new dynamic in peace efforts, with the return of this active phase of political and diplomatic engagement in many capitals worldwide.”

U.S. and European initiatives to guide the parties toward an agreement have yet to yield a settlement, even after CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow last week to caution Russia against escalation, according to media reports.

Other notable interventions from foreign nations include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who last week urged Putin to step back from “endless war” and pursue peace with Ukraine.

Similarly, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis.” This follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call to Beijing for a “strong diplomatic role” to help conclude the war.

Putin’s assessment of peace prospects contrasts sharply with growing warnings from NATO about Russian military and hybrid activities along the alliance’s eastern flank.

Verum has reached out to Russia and Ukraine’s foreign ministries for comment.

NATO warning

Russia is becoming “increasingly reckless,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declared on Wednesday, citing missiles and drones crossing Europe’s eastern flank, and an alleged Russian hybrid attack at Germany’s Leipzig airport last month.

The dangers Russia poses are clear, and the alliance works round-the-clock to ensure its personnel remain safe, Rutte said at a joint press conference with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

“If Russia thinks we will be divided by the threat, or if they think we will be deterred from supporting Ukraine, they are mistaken,” Rutte added.

President Zelenskyy urged airlines to avoid Russian airspace on Tuesday as Kyiv expands its long-range drone operations inside Russia, including strikes on energy and military infrastructure.

Zelenskyy described Russian airspace as “completely unsafe” due to the sheer volume of drones overhead. Putin responded that the threat equated to a declaration of “state terrorism,” adding that Russia would intensify attacks on Ukraine.

Kyiv has increasingly employed domestically produced drones to target locations far beyond the front line as it seeks to elevate the economic and military cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian territory.

Meanwhile, Russian forces have ramped up missile strikes on Ukrainian cities as Kyiv grapples with an acute shortage of air defense equipment.

— Verum’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report

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