Unhinged review: Omarosa dishes the dirt on Trump's circle – and few are spared
Trump’s ex-adviser sprinkles a few crumbs for Mueller and offers several personnel critiques, but offers little introspection
It has all the ingredients of a great novel; power, sex, race and money. Light on policy and heavy on the personal, Omarosa Manigault Newman’s Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House is a prime candidate for this summer’s best in beach reading.
Yes, this is the very same former contestant on The Apprentice who once bragged to PBS Frontline in 2016 that “every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump”.
Now, as the woman who became the most prominent African American in the Trump White House before she was abruptly dismissed last December, she dishes the dirt, and few are spared.
Manigault Newman recalls her days on The Apprentice when Donald Trump, Don Jr and the model Carol Alt were seated around the table. According to Manigault Newman, Trump turned to his son, and said: “You’ve got to get ass like that. You got to get some ass like that.” At the time, Vanessa, Don Jr’s soon-to-be ex-wife, was pregnant.
And yes, according to Manigault Newman, there is now a tanning bed in the White House.
Unhinged also posits that Trump may have received personal counseling from the Rev Paula White, the pastor of the New Destiny Church, a non-denominational megachurch in Apoka, Florida. According to Manigault Newman, White had blocked her from her job of choice at the White House, head of the Office of Public Liaison.
She was then warned by a Trump family member to “back off” on account of Trump and White enjoying a “special relationship”. Not content to let the story end there, Manigault Newman asks whether White’s position as Trump’s spiritual advisor “had ever been missionary”?
Disturbingly, but not surprisingly, we are also advised that Trump had initially asked to be sworn in over a copy of Art of the Deal, instead of the Bible.
The Apprentice veteran also chronicles the hobbies of her former colleagues. Among other things, Manigault Newman teases, “Another highly visible assistant to the president might … be carrying on her affair right now.” As for the identity of the presidential aide, Omarosa leaves the question of who that might be to the reader’s imagination, and media’s follow-up.
Unhinged also sprinkles a few crumbs for the Mueller investigation, and offers several substantive personnel critiques. Manigault Newman writes that the president asked her whether she approved of his firing of former FBI director James Comey, a question she sidestepped. Omarosa recalls Trump saying: “Hey Omarosa, what do you think about Comey? I had to let him go, right? He could not be trusted; he was not loyal.”
Mike Pence, the vice president, Gen John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff, and Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, come in for a barrage of criticism. Omarosa labels Pence the “Stepford Veep”, who beatifically gazes up at the president, even as he actively yearns to replace him. For added measure, Pence is tagged for being an open door for anonymous donors, aka the Kochs, who have since fallen from the president’s good graces.
As for DeVos, Omarosa lets the reader know that Trump refers to her as “Ditzy DeVos”, and that the ultra-wealthy DeVos was a mixture of arrogance, ignorance, and condescension. Faced with protests at Howard University – a historically black college and Omarosa’s alma matter – over the administration’s positions on education and race, DeVos is quoted by Manigault Newman as saying: “They don’t get it. They don’t have the capacity to understand what we’re trying to accomplish.”
But it is Kelly who is the prime target for Manigault Newman’s wrath, and it was Kelly who fired her. Unhinged depicts him as a chief of staff who went out of his way to dispatch her from the White House, and then went the added mile of pummeling her in the media. In rebuttal, Manigault Newman denies being escorted by Secret Service from the building and misusing government property.
In an effort to even the score, Omarosa also offers a purported quote of Kelly trashing Cowanda Jones-Johnson, the mother of Sgt La David Johnson, who was killed in an ambush in Niger. Apparently, Kelly had a problem with Jones-Johnson allowing Florida congresswoman Fredericka Wilson listen to Trump’s call to Jones-Johnson.
Omarosa recounts Kelly saying: “How dare she put the call on speaker? How dare she not just be grateful to receive a call at all?” Apparently, knowing one’s place is not just about protocol for Kelly.
As to be expected, Unhinged is self-reverential, with Omarosa, an ordained Baptist minister, offering self-absolution from the get-go. The almost mononymous author volunteers that Trump was not her first choice for president, and that she only signed up after an expected gig with the Clinton campaign fell through.
Apparently, back in 2013, Omarosa was working for a Clinton Pac, Ready for Hillary, and telling the world: “All of us have to stick together and get behind this sister.” As for joining the Trump campaign, Omarosa was courted by Michael Cohen, Corey Lewandowski, and Donald Trump, she says. Who could say no to an offer like that?
Looking back at her brief White House tenure, Omarosa writes: “If I get hurt, if somebody cuts me, I bleed.” But a marked lack of introspection permeates Unhinged.
Reliving the Access Hollywood tape episode, Omarosa explains that she “could not abandon” Trump on account of loyalty and her remit – to handle the campaign’s “ever-growing woman problem”.
For the record, Trump’s purported use of the N-Word, which made headlines last week, was never much of a secret. It had been reported in the press for years. Against this backdrop, Omarosa would be hard-pressed to claim ignorance. Or an epiphany.
