Spending Time With Omarosa

For some reason I turned on TV News the other night and the perky, preppy, puffy, self-promoting Tucker Carlson on Fox was screaming about how unbelievably stupid the Democrats are. Remember when Democrats were commie-pinko Russia-loving traitors? The tables have turned —now it is the Republicans who are called Russia-loving scum — just watch CNN if you don’t believe me. They featured such prehistoric luminaries as John Dean and Carl Bernstein pulled out of mothballs to inform us how much like Nixon our current president is. 

So in an effort to escape all of this loudmouthed opining, I ordered Omarosa Manigault Newman’s audiobook, “Unhinged,” just to be soothed by her soft, intimate voice whispering about the evils of the current White House. One has to be kind to one’s ears. Not sure if it matters whether her claims are true or not. 

“Unhinged” is, at the time of this writing, number one on the New York Times bestseller list. 

The book is part self-promoting autobiography, part Trump psychoanalysis and part apology for having worked for Trump. It is organized and well-written — bravo to the ghost writer.

After receiving her masters degree in communication from Howard University, in Washington, D.C., in the 90s, Omarosa got a job in the Clinton White House working for Vice President Al Gore. She was disruptive there and was moved to the Commerce Department, where she was fired. She glides over these details — instead describing how, in 2004, she beat out thousands of contestants for a much-coveted place on the (then) brand new reality show, “The Apprentice,” starring Donald Trump. 

The show cast her as the bad girl, a role she says she relished, and explains that it was all a ploy by the show’s producers to boost ratings. In spite of her popularity as the woman “America loved to hate,” Omarosa was fired in week nine of the first season. 

Her relationship with Trump endured; she calls him her mentor and the most successful businessman in the world. Growing up poor in Youngstown, Ohio, she says, why wouldn’t she choose someone like Trump to be her mentor?  Proximity to Trump and her role on his show earned her her own celebrity status and a later role on “All Star Celebrity Apprentice” as well as stints on Oprah and Jimmy Fallon’s shows.  

It didn’t surprise her, then, when Trump appointed her the Director of African-American Outreach in  his 2016 campaign and, after he won, Trump appointed her  Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison. Her loyalty was rewarded until it wasn’t.    

She was fired in December 2017 by chief of staff John Kelly, she says, unusually,  in the situation room of the White House. She blames the firing on the fact that she possessed a damaging n-word tape (though to date she has not produced such a tape.) Freed of any of the constraints of a long friendship, Omarosa lets loose in her book. My favorite allegation was when she says that Trump, the day before the Inauguration pondered whether he can use his book, “The Art of the Deal,” instead of a bible for the swearing in ceremony. When Omarosa advises him against it, she says that Trump said, “’The Art of the Deal’ is a bestseller! It’s the greatest business book of all time. It’s how I’m going to make great deals for the country. Just think how many copies I’d sell—maybe a commemorative inauguration copy?!”  Later, he tells her he was joking, but Omarosa is not so sure. 

In a pseudo-psychiatric way she delves into Trump’s erratic behavior.  

She says, “I seriously began to suspect that the president was delusional or had a mental condition, that made him forget from one day to the next. Was Donald like Ronald Reagan, impaired while everyone around him ran the show and covered up for him? Was Mike Pence his Nancy Reagan, with the same vapid, adoring looks?”

Omarosa also claims that Trump’s physician is paid to say whatever Trump tells him to say and, in fact, he is in terrible health, addicted to Big Macs and fried chicken, and drinks eight Diet Cokes a day which, she says, are scientifically proven to destroy the brain. Not that we need Omarosa to confirm what we see with our own eyes, an overweight, overtanned not particularly fit man.  

If Trump’s twitter reaction to the book: “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!” isn’t enough to convince you of its merit — then maybe you’ll just listen to it to be lulled into a state of complacent bliss by the soft stories  of a master manipulator.