Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House

by Omarosa Manigault Newman

  I’m eternally grateful that the Secret Service had my back. Thank God they issued that statement, because things were getting crazy!

  The president, a.k.a. Twitter Fingers, didn’t tweet until nearly an hour after the Secret Service, and nearly a full day after my meeting with Kelly. At 3:58, he posted, “Thank you Omarosa for your service! I wish you continued success.”

  The tweet was weak. When the press shouted a question to him about me a couple of days later, he said, “I like Omarosa.” Vague. Faint praise. He didn’t defend me at all. After fourteen years, this was the best he could do for me?

  Where did the hysterical rant story come from? Someone had to have leaked this fiction.

  I suspect that it came from the chief of staff’s office. He’d threatened me in the Situation Room that it might get ugly and there could be “difficulty” to my reputation, and there was. That would explain the clandestine meeting, so no one else would see how it had really been handled. In their effort to discredit, distract, and deny—their usual pattern—they had the added bonus of making me look crazy to frighten away the anonymous N-word tape source.

  General Kelly attempted to assassinate my character. I asked myself, Why? Given the circumstances and timing, I had to believe that the purpose was to prevent me from getting the N-word tape, which, by logic, I was now convinced had to be real.

  While all this was going on, I called my sources about the tape and couldn’t reach any of them. As soon as the fiction hit the news, the trail went cold. Ice cold.

  I tried to set the record straight on Good Morning America on Thursday morning. Michael Strahan and I had a very polite conversation. I made my points, asking why there were no photos of my being dragged away, and discussing the absurdity of a raving woman barging into the residence of the most secure building in the world. Michael reminded me of something I once said about the reason I worked at the Trump White House: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” Then he asked me where that left me now that I was no longer at the table.

  Considering what was going on, I’d say my place on the plate was fairly obvious. I couldn’t speak out against the White House while I was still on its payroll, so I was intentionally vague about what happened and didn’t volunteer new information.

  That Saturday, Leslie Jones played me on Saturday Night Live, standing outside the White House, ranting at Alec Baldwin as Trump to let me back in. The narrative of the blinded Trump worshipper was good for laughs, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  • • •

  I GOT MANY offers after leaving the White House, but I chose Celebrity Big Brother because it has always been one of my favorite shows, it started right away, and I knew the spotlight would be on me. I figured that if anyone threatened to hurt me, the world would be watching. Bad things can happen to you in the shadows, in the dark, especially when you’re threatened by one of the most ominous figures in US government. But on Big Brother, I’d be on three live TV shows a week. Twenty-four-hour live feeds. Anything they tried to do would be litigated in the court of public opinion.

  On the show, I said some things that were not flattering to the president.

  The day after that episode aired, Raj Shah, the deputy press secretary, stood up and contradicted what Sarah Sanders had previously said from the podium. “Omarosa was fired three times on The Apprentice, and this is the fourth time we let her go. She had limited contact with the president while here; she has no contact now.”

  So which is it? Did I resign or was I fired? Had I exploited my walk-in privileges and spent too much time with the president (the predominant complaint of other advisers for the first six months of my tenure), or did I have no access and never spend any time with him at all, contrary to the hundreds of videos and photos of our often daily White House meetings?

  This White House has a problem with the truth. But at least they are consistent—and only too predictable—with the lies they tell.

  I left the White House to a barrage of threats from John Kelly’s staff. They accused me of keeping my White House computer. Mind you, when Stefan and Irene oversaw my packing, they provided me with a checklist that I signed, turning over all my technology and my ID. It’s standard protocol for departures. I wouldn’t have been able to leave the complex with any of it.

  My assistant, Alexa, was barred from communicating with me and was effectively banned from all department meetings and correspondence after I left. They tormented her daily, until she got out several months later and moved to a new job.

  In the rush to get out of the White House after my meeting with Kelly, I left behind some very personal items: financial documents, a drive containing my wedding proofs, photos, gifts, cards, and most important, my commission certificate. According to an email from the White House counsel’s office, if I wanted to see my personal items again, I would have to sign a draconian departure nondisclosure agreement (NDA) about my time at the White House.

  I’d read that White House counsel tried to make other appointees sign NDAs during and after their tenure at the White House (some were forced to), but I refused.

  At the time of this writing, General John Kelly is still holding my personal items hostage at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and advising the counsel’s office to harass me constantly.

  A normal person would have crumbled under the kind of scare tactics and pressure they put me under. But I’m not your average person. And I’m not easily intimidated. In my previous experience in the White House, with the Clinton administration, I saw what happened when people abused power and how that ultimately led to their downfall.

  That experience of being locked up in the Situation Room was extremely traumatic, but it was not the worst situation I had ever faced in my tumultuous life.

  Believe me, I am the ultimate survivor.

  Introduction

  * * *

  Loyalty Over Logic

  Since driving out of the gates of West Executive Drive on that night of my separation from the White House, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect. The months that followed were very emotional and exhausting, but also cathartic.

  In hindsight, I can see that there were so many times I could have—and perhaps should have—left Trumpworld. But at every single juncture, I stayed. Many have wondered why I stood by President Trump for nearly fifteen years. The simple answer to this very complex question: I stayed because of loyalty.

  Loyalty is a loaded topic when it comes to Donald Trump. His moblike loyalty requirements are exacting, imperishable, and sometimes unethical (as in James Comey’s case). But for the people in Trumpworld, loyalty to him is an absolute and unyielding necessity, akin to followers’ devotion to a cult leader.

  My membership in Trumpworld began when I was in my twenties, in 2003. He was one of the most famous men in America, a businessman I admired and wanted to emulate. I grew up poor and on public assistance, and I looked up to affluent figures like him. I desired to experience his extraordinary success for myself, to have a life of wealth and luxury. Donald Trump was uncannily intuitive and extremely perceptive. He seemed to be able to sense when certain individuals were susceptible to being influenced by his power and abiding by his loyalty demands—as was seen later with people like his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, his first campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and Hope Hicks. His demands increased over time, as did the loyalty of his followers.

  Even if people are banished from Trumpworld, it’s usually only temporary. No one can ever leave for good. As soon as you get out, they reel you back in, like ousted adviser Steve Bannon (now back on in an unofficial capacity), fired campaign manager Lewandowski (now working at Mike Pence’s PAC, or political action committee), and personal aide John McEntee (now on the Trump reelection campaign).

  Just a few days after my departure from the White House, I received a call from Eric Trump and his wife, Lara Trump. They were calling me together from Mar-a-Lago to check on me. Lara said, “You know how much we love you,
how much DJT loves you. The first thing he said to me on Thursday night was, ‘Where is Omarosa? Is she okay?’ He wants to make sure you’re okay and taken care of. I’d love to have you on board the campaign.”

  She was calling on behalf of the president to offer me a senior position on his 2020 reelection campaign. I expressed my gratitude to Lara and asked her to send the details of the offer over in an email, which I received soon after. I called to share the news with my husband, who expressed incredulity.

  Treating someone with love and kindness after abuse is a classic cult tactic. I felt myself being manipulated, but refused to allow that to happen.

  Before ending the call, Lara mentioned a recent article about my departure in the New York Times by Katie Rogers and Maggie Haberman, where they reported, “Mrs. Newman said in the Good Morning America interview, ‘I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that have affected my community and my people. It is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.’ . . . [Mrs. Newman] had been trying to raise ‘grave concerns’ about an issue that would ‘affect the president in a big way.’ Former and current White House officials said they were uncertain what she was referring to. . . . The woman who cultivated a reputation as the ultimate TV villain is urging viewers to stay tuned to find out why she really left.”

  Lara continued, “That’s something you can’t tell people about,” she said. “If you come on board, we can’t have you mention that stuff.”

  In the moment, I believed she was referring most specifically to The Apprentice–era N-word tape. Or was it the nearly fifteen years of Trumpworld insider information I was privy to?

  I turned down the president’s offer to work for the 2020 campaign. In my response declining the position, I explained that I was not interested in working for his campaign, his company, his family, or for him directly in any capacity. My break with Donald Trump was not just a matter of resentment over how my separation was mishandled by John Kelly and the team of lawyers who locked me in the Situation Room that night. The change in my mind and heart was due to a combination of factors, but mainly, my growing realization that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot, and a misogynist. My certainty about the N-word tape and his frequent uses of that word were the top of a high mountain of truly appalling things I’d experienced with him, during the last two years in particular. It had finally sunk in that the person I thought I’d known so well for so long was actually a racist. Using the N-word was not just the way he talks, but, more disturbing, it was how he thought of me and African Americans as a whole.

  • • •

  SOME PEOPLE MIGHT say they knew his true colors all along, so why didn’t I? I’m not sure that I could have, given our long history and the slow evolution of our connection.

  Among all The Apprentice alumni, I was the first contestant Donald Trump singled out, whom he had invested in professionally, who he’d brought onto his campaign and into the White House. When we first met, he needed his show to have big ratings and to be a resounding success. I sought to win the job, lead one of his companies, and learn valuable business lessons from “one of the most successful businessmen of all time,” as he described himself. If I gained fame and fortune along the way, that would not be a problem for me.

  We were repeatedly told how lucky we were to have been selected from 215,000 applicants for the first season of the show. I did feel very fortunate to have been chosen, as it changed the trajectory of my career and my life. Our relationship was symbiotic; we exploited each other. Trump and NBC used me to promote the show, lobby for an Emmy, and bring in diverse viewers. I used the success of the first season to catapult my Hollywood career on multiple shows, movies, a book deal, and celebrity appearances. Back then, being in Trumpworld was lucrative.

  It paid social dividends as well. People thought it was so cool to know Donald Trump personally. Very frequently, people came up to me and said, “Wow, you know him! What’s he really like? Is his hair real?” They were fascinated by him, and by me for knowing him.

  The Donald Trump of 2018 is not the same man he was in 2003. When I met him, many of our beliefs were aligned. He identified with Democrats and supported commonsense gun control, like banning assault weapons; legalizing marijuana; universal health care; and even a tax hike on the wealthy. He thought Hillary Clinton was a “great” senator and donated money to her campaigns and at least $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Between then and his run for the White House, he changed his party affiliation several times, landing on Republican. When he announced on CNN’s Larry King Live his exploratory committee with possible intent to run for president, he said, “I’m a registered Republican. I’m a pretty conservative guy. I’m somewhat liberal on social issues, especially health care, etcetera. . . . I think that nobody is really hitting it right. The Democrats are too far left. . . . The Republicans are too far right.”

  I couldn’t say I disagreed. When his campaign began, I received calls and notes from friends and confidants warning me to be careful not to get used or exploited. I was confused about their concern. I would reply, “Donald and I have known each other for years, and I’m loyal to him.” My loyalty was baked in by then. And remember, in the summer of 2015, no one took his campaign seriously, or thought he was ever going to win. What harm was there in helping out my old pal, especially in light of my having been betrayed by the Clinton campaign a month earlier? (We will get to that a little later.)

  That fateful evening when I was locked in the Situation Room was one of the most pivotal moments in my adult life. The next day, when people laughed with glee about my departure, I wasn’t surprised. They thought I had it coming, and that might have been fair. I’m famous for dishing it out, and I can take my lumps, too. I also believe that mocking me was their way of belittling Trump. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, was unreachable to them, but I was low-hanging fruit, an easy target to swing at. If the story that was being reported was true, it confirmed their suspicions, that Trump was just using me and would discard me the first chance he got. Having been in politics for twenty years, I’ve seen this type of bad behavior on both sides of the aisle. I worked in the Clinton White House and the Trump White House. I worked with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. I’ve observed the media and voter manipulation, lies, corruption, and scandals from both parties. Considering that acrimony in politics touches everyone, I never took it personally. I used their mockery and meanness to fuel my comeback plans.

  Leaving this job or being mocked in the media are hardly the worst things I’ve faced. I am tough because of the extraordinarily difficult things I have been through in life. As hard as times have been, my life is an example of how great and powerful the American dream is. A girl from the Westlake Terrace housing project in Youngstown, Ohio, can grow up in abject poverty and rise—not once, but twice—to work as a political appointee to two US presidents. I accomplished this despite preexisting racial biases toward strong black women. Say what you will about my standing by Trump for way too long (which I agree with!), I was the only African American woman in the room, the only one speaking up for a community that, in the Trump White House, had not one other voice.

  I’ve been cast as the villain since my first day on television, and I nurtured that persona because it worked for my Hollywood career. That was fine for a reality TV star. But people didn’t want to see a reality star in the White House—I mean, other than Trump himself.

  It’s time to tell my story.

  It’s a good one.

  No doubt, you’ve come here with prejudice about who you think I am. But all I’m asking is that you hear me out.

  Part One

  * * *

  The Apprentice Years

  Chapter One

  * * *

  “Make Us Proud”

  In the moments leading up to my first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump, I was certain that the next twenty-four
hours would change my life. I stood in Trump Tower and looked around to take in the scene. It was warm there, with all the production lights beaming down on each of us, sixteen in total. Sitting behind the big reception desk was Robin Himmler, one of Trump’s executive assistants. Robin’s voice broke my reverie. “Mr. Trump will see you now. You can go in over there.”

  By “over there,” she meant The Apprentice boardroom, where Donald Trump was sitting with his two advisers, George Ross and Carolyn Kepcher. Once we walked through those doors, the adventure of a lifetime would truly begin.

  The sixteen cast members of the first season of The Apprentice, including myself, had been sequestered for a week before we began taping the show. We weren’t allowed to meet or speak with one another and were kept in different hotels. When we were finally brought to 725 Fifth Avenue, Trump Tower, it was the first time we’d been able to assess the competition.

  Donald asked us to go around the table and introduce ourselves, a scripted repetition of our show intros: “My name is Omarosa Manigault Stallworth. I grew up in the projects but I am now a PhD candidate and work as a political consultant. Four years ago, I worked at the White House for the president of the United States.”

  I didn’t know if Trump had been briefed with a deeper biography. I assumed he knew something about my background but not the whole story.

  • • •

  WHEN MY MOTHER, Theresa Walker, met my father, Jack Manigault, a long-distance truck driver, they fell in love, got married, and in quick succession, they had my brother Jack Jr., followed by my sister, Gladys, and, finally, me. I was born in 1974, the year of the tornado outbreak. Ohio was hit with the most violent tornado outbreak ever recorded until then, thirty-one—including me.