Anthony Scaramucci Called Me, His GrubHub Delivery Guy, to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon — and I’m Still On the Phone With Him

On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. — Ryan Lizza, the New Yorker, 7/27/17

On Wednesday night I received a phone call from a Grubhub customer. He wasn’t happy; he was hungry. It is now Friday and he is still on the phone. The customer turned out to be Anthony Scaramucci, the newly appointed White House Communications Director.

“Who leaked that to you?” he asked.

“You have a GrubHub account under your name,” I said.

He responded by threatening to fire GrubHub’s entire staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate every part of this operation and we’ll start over,” he said. I asked if this meant he did not want the pad thai and chicken satay. He said, “This is a major catastrophe for the American country.” That’s when I realized he was trying to pay with a Discover card.

“We don’t take Discover,” I gently told him, wishing this conversation would end as quickly as possible.

“Reince told you, didn’t he?” Scaramucci asked, briskly.

“Does Reince have a GrubHub account? It is possible to order food for a friend if you know their address.”

“Reince is not a friend.”

Mr. Scaramucci then erupted into a series of expletives about “Reince,” who I wasn’t able to find on the Grubhub user list. He then proceeded to go off the rails on multiple subjects.

“If I have a 20% off discount coupon then how am I supposed to know that it’s for on-sale items only?? I already put full price items in my cart! They’re just building up my dreams so they can crush them! That blue blazer would have been life changing for The Mooch.”

Mr. Scaramucci continued his inexplicable rant, during which he exclaimed about the impossibility of youthful dreams, the beauty of the deep ocean, Steve Bannon’s penis, and the tender angst that he felt every day around 4 pm. It’s hard to get someone to stop crying over the phone; it’s even harder to hang up on someone who’s crying, especially having taken the GrubHub oath: “Stay On The Phone.”

“Look, I’m sorry to hear about all that, but I’m really just here to ask for your debit card number. Don’t you want your pad thai?”

“YES!” He yelled into the phone. “WITH CHICKEN!”

“Okay,” I responded, accommodatingly.

“YOU KNOW WHO’S A CHICKEN? REINCE PRIEBUS!”

Surprised, I tried to redirect the conversation to payment, but he interrupted once more.

“OKAY HERE’S THE THING: I HAVE A NIGHTMARE ABOUT REINCE PRIEBUS EVERY NIGHT. HE IS A TALL WIZARD WITH SUNGLASSES. HE TAKES OFF THE SUNGLASSES, AND INSTEAD OF EYES, CALIFORNIA RAISINS. HE EATS ONE RAISIN, MAKES A WISH ON THE OTHER, AND THEN SPITS ON ME. THESE ARE THE GOOD SUN-MAID RAISINS!!! I AM LIVID. I SAY, ‘REINCE, WHY?’ AND HE SAYS, ‘BECAUSE I CAN.’ I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING IN A FULL RAGE, KNOWING THAT I MUST DESTROY PRIEBUS. I ABSOLUTELY MUST.”

At that point, I no longer wanted to give him the complimentary soy sauce. Weird, I know, to have soy sauce with pad thai, but it’s a cool fusion restaurant. I wonder if I should mention this fun detail to further encourage him to complete the transaction.

I then heard several beeps and began to wonder if his phone grew sentient and started censoring him. “Hello?” I asked.

“Oh, so sorry, I actually gotta take this,” he responded. “It’s a Best Buy specialist calling. Apparently there’s a payment issue.”

“Okay, well I better go then,” I said.

“No!” he shouted before saying the five words that would undoubtedly lead to my ultimate demise, “I’ll put you on hold.”