Trump, the blue-collar president

America's richest president voices the aspirations of the working class, according to this admiring portrait by a Wall Street financier. Scaramucci (The Little Book of Hedge Funds) was the Trump administration's communications director for 11 days in 2017 before he was fired for a profane on-the-record rant. The book's last section is another White House tell-all targeting staffers Reince Priebus and especially Steve Bannon, who Scaramucci describes as peddling a self-aggrandizing narrative to the press and blames for the harshness of Trump's immigration policies. Before settling those scores, Scaramucci cites his own blue-collar family history to paint Trump as the champion of workers victimized by globalization and unfair trade agreements. In his telling, Trump is a quick study, a charismatic communicator who oozes authenticity, and a mensch who actually hates to fire people. Writing in colorful, punchy Long Island-ese-"It's not a matter of whether you're going to get fucked in Washington, it's just a matter of when"-Scaramucci makes an engaging case that Trump addresses some working-class concerns in a substantive, appealing way. He's less convincing when he skirts the upper-income bias of Trump's tax cuts or calls himself "a pro-union person" while endorsing curtailments of union bargaining rights. Scaramucci's depiction of Trump-and, implicitly, himself-as working-class heroes often rings hollow. Photos. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.