In the latest episode of “Survivor: White House,” the West Wing descended into chaos Thursday, as President Trump and his top aides turned on one another like vicious reality-show divas — with no one sure who would be the next to get a knife in their back.
The most jaw-dropping development came when communications chief Anthony Scaramucci launched into a vulgar tirade against White House chief of staff Reince Priebus in a phone call to a reporter late Wednesday.
“Reince is a f–king paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci ranted at Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker.
Recounting their conversation Thursday, Lizza reported that Scaramucci, a millionaire investment guru known on Wall Street as “The Mooch,” wanted to know who leaked a story about him having dinner at the White House Wednesday with Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox News exec Bill Shine.
“Who leaked that to you?” Scaramucci demanded of Lizza, before suggesting it was Priebus.
When Lizza declined to tell him, Scaramucci threatened to fire his own entire staff.
“OK, I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks. I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said.
Scaramucci, who has been on the job less than a week, then laced into the president’s chief strategist.
“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c- -k,” he said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the f- -king strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.”
He then said he wanted to “f- -king kill all the leakers” and referred to himself in the third person as he declared he would clean house.
“OK, ‘The Mooch’ showed up a week ago. This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, OK?” he said.
He ended the conversation by saying, “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some s- -t to make this guy crazy.”
Minutes later, Scaramucci posted a tweet in which he wrongly called a “leak” of his publicly available financial forms “a felony” and included Priebus’ Twitter name, “@reince45,” fueling speculation Wednesday night that he was accusing Priebus of the leak.
Scaramucci tweeted on Thursday about his conversation with Lizza, and made no apologies for his coarse language.
“I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump’s agenda,” he wrote.
A few hours later, he tweeted, “I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter. It won’t happen again.”
Scaramucci went on CNN Thursday morning and again put the heat on Priebus — who Lizza later said wasn’t the source who leaked the dinner story to him.
“When I put out a tweet and I put Reince’s name in a tweet, they’ll all make the assumption that it’s him because journalists know who the leakers are,” Scaramucci said.
“If Reince wants to explain he’s not a leaker, let him do that. But let me tell you about myself. I’m a straight shooter, and I’ll go right to the heart of the matter.”
He even hinted at the death penalty for leakers.
“Those are the types of leaks that are so treasonous that 150 years ago, people would have actually been hung for those types of leaks,” he declared.
The former New York financier also suggested he and Preibus, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, might never be able to patch up their fractured relationship.
“Now, if you want to talk about the chief of staff, we have had odds, we have had differences,” Scaramucci said, comparing the two to the biblical brothers Cain and Abel.
“When I said we were brothers from the podium, that’s because we’re rough on each other. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel. Other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I don’t know if this is repairable or not. That will be up to the president.”
While Scaramucci’s public attacks on his White House colleague may appear to be the work of a loose cannon, a new report said his tirade was orchestrated by Trump himself.
“The president specifically gave [Scaramucci] the green light to go after Reince,” a White House adviser told the Daily Beast.
Scaramucci also claimed he had gotten Trump’s “blessing” for his attacks in a phone call with the president before the CNN interview.
The “president is not concerned with Reince’s feelings,” the source told the Daily Beast.
But Trump apparently has no plans to can Priebus, despite having been harshly critical of him for months.
Asked about the unseemly infighting, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said only, “The president, as always, enjoys healthy competition.”
She refused, however, to say whether Trump still had confidence in Priebus.
The Mooch had already threatened to send his entire press shop to the guillotine over leaking — and one, press aide Michael Short, beat him to the punch, quitting before he was fired.
Priebus’ ultimate fate remained uncertain Thursday. But his future has been precarious from the get-go, as he has feuded with Trump, Bannon and the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
Priebus and Bannon both opposed Scaramucci’s appointment, and press secretary Sean Spicer quit after The Mooch was named.
Spicer was quickly replaced by Huckabee Sanders, who is a Trump favorite — for now.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has been tormented by Trump almost daily — with critical remarks in interviews and scathing tweets — took the high road Thursday.
“I serve at the pleasure of the president. I’ve understood that from the day I took the job,” he said.
The former Alabama senator has been unable to shake Trump’s wrath, despite being an early supporter and a conservative favorite.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!” Trump railed in a typical Twitter broadside.
Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Sessions admitted that Trump’s barbs have stung.
“It’s kind of hurtful, but the president of the United States is a strong leader . . . He wants us all to do our job, and that’s what I intend to do,” he said.
Insiders speculated that Trump was trying to force his attorney general to resign — a possible first step toward firing special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Bannon himself has maintained a low profile, apparently in the hope of flying under Trump’s radar after he was portrayed as a presidential puppetmaster.
Even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — who, as a former ExxonMobil CEO, is a veteran of the dog-eat-dog corporate world — is reportedly flummoxed by the White House turbulence.
Tillerson, who reportedly has grown frustrated with the president, Kushner and others, is taking some time off, his spokesman said this week, stoking speculation that he could be looking for an escape route. He denied it.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told CNN that while some public spats are inevitable in every administration, “in this White House, it’s out of control.”
“You don’t have to comment on everything,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it.”
Additional reporting by Mark Moore with AP