U.S. President Donald Trump felt Anthony Scaramucci, whom he fired as his communications chief on Monday, made inappropriate comments to The New Yorker magazine, the White House said.
"The president certainly felt that Anthony's comments were inappropriate for a person in that position and he didn't want to burden Gen. Kelly," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a briefing, referring to John Kelly, who was sworn in as the new White House chief of staff earlier on Monday.
Trump fired Scaramucci on Monday just over a week after naming him to the job in the latest staff upheaval to hit the Republican's six-month-old administration.
Scaramucci, appointed to the communications post by Trump 10 days ago, had attacked then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon in profanity-laden and vulgar terms in a telephone call to a journalist from The New Yorker magazine last week.
The comments caused a stir among lawmakers and some religious leaders, but Scaramucci did not apologize. In response to the backlash he said on Twitter that he would refrain from using such "colorful" language again in his new position.
Sanders declined to identify what specifically Trump found inappropriate about Scaramucci's comments.