Soon after President Trump announced Reince Priebus’ exit as White House chief of staff Friday, Priebus told CNN he had actually resigned the day before and remained on “Team Trump.”
Priebus told Blitzer he offered his resignation, and that Trump did not ask for it.
“This is not a situation with a bunch of ill-will feelings,” Priebus told Wolf Blitzer. “I’m always gonna be a Trump fan. I’m on Team Trump.”
Priebus said he and Trump agreed long ago — well, not that long ago, since Trump only took office in January — that “any time either one of us think that we need to make a change or go in a different direction, let’s just talk about it and get it done.”
He also praised his replacement, Gen. John Kelly.
“The president wanted to go in a different direction. I support him in that… the president has the right to change directions,” he said.
Priebus declined to comment on a New Yorker interview with new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci in which Scaramucci accused Priebus of being a leaker, and called him a “f—ing paranoid schizophrenic.”
Scaramucci also correctly predicted that Priebus days in the White House were numbered, and that he would be asked to resign very soon.
It turns out Priebus resigned only hours after that interview.
Reince Priebus on Scaramucci’s comments about him: I’m not going to get “into the mud” on that. https://t.co/jlnkILvimn
— CNN (@CNN) July 28, 2017