The women in President Donald Trump’s orbit have to lavish him with praise if they want him to treat them well, the president’s former adviser Anthony Scaramucci has claimed.
Speaking on The Daily Beast Podcast, Scaramucci, who infamously lasted just 11 days as communications director during Trump’s first administration, described the women the 80-year-old president wants around him as having to be “subservient” and “more or less a lackey of his.”
“Remember, people are transactions to Donald Trump—they’re not people,” Scaramucci told author Nell Scovell and host Joanna Coles, explaining that the president sees the women around him as “transactions in his field of vision.”
Speaking to the Daily Mail this week, several MAGA women appeared to confirm Scaramucci’s assessment of how Trump views women, revealing that the president’s relentless pressure to keep up with the latest beauty standards—including daily blowouts and regular Botox treatments—can grow tiresome.
The women spoke to the outlet after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, 28, announced that she was stepping down to spend more time with her young children. But Leavitt was also reportedly fed up with Trump’s constant demands, a frustration the MAGA women who spoke to the Mail said they couldn’t blame her for.
“You have to be exceptional at your job, which is a given, but if you’re a woman you have to look a certain way, dress a certain way and be available 24/7, because this is a President who barely sleeps,” one MAGA woman said of working for Trump.
A woman Trump has increasingly appeared to like having by his side is his personal assistant, Natalie Harp, 35, who, according to the bombshell book Regime Change by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, would leave gushing letters for Trump to find in his “personal spaces” during the 2024 campaign, including one that read, “You are all that matters to me.”
“If you were saying something nice about him, he would be flattering to you,” Scaramucci said of the president’s behavior, adding that if someone said something negative about him, Trump would make some type of “AI rendition” of the individual.
Scaramucci referred to a “joke” the president made about CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, 34, at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he singled out the journalist and said she looked like transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who prompted a Bud Light backlash a few years ago after appearing in an ad for the popular beer.
During the speech, Trump also said Collins should smile more and suggested she did not deserve an award she received that day.
Collins isn’t the only female journalist the president has treated rudely. Trump has had multiple incidents of lashing out at female reporters, including telling Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey “quiet piggy” last year.
The president has also made a point of criticizing women who disagree with him on Truth Social, even dragging the wives of political candidates he dislikes into his attacks. Last week, he targeted Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and his wife in a post that appeared intended to compare their marriage with his own.
But Trump doesn’t always hide behind social media when attacking women. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he called his opponent Kamala Harris “mentally impaired,” while in 2016 he repeatedly branded Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary.”
“He’s a full-on misogynist, no question about that,” Scaramucci said about the president. “I look at him, and I say, this guy is weird about sex. He’s weird about women,” he added.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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