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

by Omarosa Manigault Newman

  He tweeted, and we scrambled to prepare to explain it to the press in the famous James S. Brady briefing room. I was a fixture there. In the beginning, it was exciting sitting in that historic room watching the back and forth between the press corps and the press secretary. But over time, the excitement dimmed.

  At first, Sean Spicer’s press briefings were Must See TV, and the president directed them from the Oval like he was producing an episode of The Apprentice. We’d start the day very early with a morning huddle in Sean’s office. Then Sean, Hope, Kellyanne, and I would dash to Reince’s for a senior staff meeting. Sometimes, we’d have all-comms meetings in the Roosevelt Room after that. All of these meetings were devoted to finding data to support Trump’s tweets and comments and getting the story straight to prep Sean at another meeting at 11:30 before his press briefing. Each departmental comms director would have to submit possible questions on the issues of the day that might be asked by the press corps. As the comms director for OPL, I had issues nearly every day, related to race, veterans, women, or African Americans. I learned to work very closely with Adam Kennedy, the person charged with putting the briefing book together.

  Once the top issues were selected, we would drill Sean on the questions, pretending to be particular reporters. Very often, we would have to submit the questions and responses to counsel to see what could legally be addressed and how it could or should be worded. On other occasions, Sean would go directly to the Oval Office and ask Trump how he wanted Sean to address an issue. Sean had difficulty pronouncing certain words, so we would have to go through each one phonetically with him. He also stuttered a lot when he got really nervous, which could make him appear to be lying when he was not. He was just nervous.

  Trump didn’t help calm him down. He was, as usual, highly critical and mocking, to Sean’s face and behind his back. I remember watching a clip of the press briefing with the president and he said of Sean, “He looks like a spokesman from Men’s Warehouse. Cheap and tacky.”

  Walking into the briefing was like coming through the tunnel of a visiting team’s field, with the lights, the cameras, the microphones, and the knowledge that people were watching from all around the world. Every single word, gesture, and statement would be dissected and analyzed in the twenty-four-hour news cycle ad nauseum.

  All this effort to respond to and support a disastrous tweet was often a waste of time. While we were scrambling to manage the fallout of one tweet, Trump would tweet a reversal without telling anyone about it beforehand. The public would know about it at the same time we did, and we were completely exposed.

  A friend of mine said, “You have to be the guardrails for the Trump train, trying to make sure the recklessly speeding train does not jump the tracks.” The thing about guardrails: no matter how sturdy they are, they still get banged up.

  Melania came down from New York to host her first White House event, an invite-only luncheon for International Women’s Day on March 8. I received my invite, along with Ivanka, Maine Senator Susan Collins, Betsy DeVos, and Karen Pence and her daughter Charlotte. The event was in the beautifully decorated State Dining Room, with Melania giving an impassioned speech about equality and the atrocious treatment of women around the world.

  I kept one eye on Melania throughout the event. It was always a challenge to read her moods with her permanent wall up. Melania and Ivanka seemed to be getting along well. Like most stepmother/stepdaughter relationships, theirs had their ups and downs, but for the most part, the women accepted each other.

  Throughout the lunch, Melania seemed to be in good spirits—until two men crashed the ladies-only event.

  Donald and Mike Pence appeared. Donald greeted Melania, but it was a chilly reception, if they touched or kissed at all, it seemed perfunctory. She kept her distance from him for the few minutes he was at the event. I noticed that, while he spoke briefly to the room, she stared at him with a rictus half-smile and flashing eyes, like she could barely stand his being at her event and couldn’t wait for him to leave.

  I’d been watching Melania watch Donald for years. Before he won the presidency, she always wore a placid mask. She had no power to change his behavior, so she appeared to tolerate it. As a protective barrier, Melania erected a wall of indifference between herself and any curious onlookers. During the campaign, Melania’s wall stayed in place, because she was rarely seen with her husband or in public at all. The media spotlight couldn’t find her.

  That all changed when Trump won the election. Now, the media spotlight caught her every moment. On inauguration day, Trump embarrassed her by not waiting for her when they got out of their limo at the White House to greet Barack and Michelle Obama, leaving her to climb the steps unescorted, a stinging contrast to other presidential couples who traditionally make this walk together. Later, during the inauguration ceremony, a video caught her smiling at Trump, and then, as soon as he turned his back, the smile melted into a bitter scowl. At the inaugural ball that night, when the couple danced awkwardly, Melania seemed, to all the world, to respond to her husband’s touch with revulsion. The hashtag FreeMelania was the result.

  It’s possible that her decision to stay in New York until Barron finished the school year before moving to the White House was a result of her discomfort with losing her privacy and how the cracks in their twelve-year (at the time) marriage were being pried open by the media.

  But, what she was coming to realize, in my opinion, beginning with her International Women’s Day event by not bothering to mask her irritation with her husband, was that the glare of the spotlight could have its advantages. Being First Lady allowed Melania to find her “voice,” albeit, not with actual words. She would never be comfortable speaking in public again, not after the RNC convention humiliation. She could use her facial expressions, her body language, and her style to make statements, however, and gain a measure of power and control in her marriage. I was curious to see how this change in Melania—small to some, seismic from my perspective—would unfold.

  On day fifty-one, Saturday Night Live skewered Ivanka Trump with expert precision in an advertising parody with Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka selling a fragrance called Complicit. At the senior staff meeting, Ivanka couldn’t stop bemoaning it, how offensive it was, how ridiculous it was. We’d all been subject to SNL attacks. I’ve been characterized by three different performers, Maya Rudolph, Sasheer Zamata, and Leslie Jones, during my time in Trumpworld. Bannon was portrayed as Death. Kellyanne had been skewered by Kate McKinnon. Sean Spicer was destroyed week after week by Melissa McCarthy (she would go on to win an Emmy for it). We’d all been hit, many of us in that same week’s show. But Ivanka would not stop talking about being ribbed. Like her father, Ivanka was thin-skinned and could not seem to take a joke.

  Donald said to Ivanka, “Honey, you’re getting hit so hard! Why are you taking this? Just go back, run the company. I can’t protect you here. I don’t like how hard they’re hitting you.” He wanted Jared and Ivanka out of the White House. It hurt him when people attacked her. They were doing it to get to him, and it was working. When she was going to important meetings—like the visit to meet the pope, in Israel, or the G7—people were snickering all over the world about her. He knew it because of his voracious consumption of cable news. All the advisers knew it, but nobody had the heart to suggest an alternative. He also felt impotent in his inability to protect her. Ivanka, his treasured, beautiful daughter, and her family were being destroyed by the press, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  On day sixty-three, March 23, the OPL was responsible for organizing a roundtable event with members of American Trucking Associations, truckers, and CEOs, to discuss health care. To welcome the group, Trump climbed into the cab of a semitruck and made tough-guy faces, miming driving the truck. Within minutes, the photos turned into hundreds of memes.

  Day sixty-nine, Ivanka officially became an assistant to the president. The external outrage about nepotism and the press’s questioning of her credentials
aside, I was comforted by her new title. I’d been watching Donald for two months day to day in the White House with growing concern about his mental state. He seemed to be showing signs of deterioration. I chalked it up, mainly, to his being out of his comfort zone in unfamiliar settings and the immense pressure of the job, after having operated at the helm of the Trump Organization at Trump Tower for decades.

  His forgetfulness and frustration were getting worse. Any time somebody new came in to brief him, he’d get angry and say, “Who’s that guy? What’s he want?” He would rail against the fact that he had a terrible team. He hated the staff because of the tsunami of leaks. He was paranoid and constantly irritable. I thought that Ivanka’s promotion from adviser to assistant would give him a measure of emotional comfort and support that he needed. While the media decried her promotion, I welcomed it. Having known her for fourteen years and worked with her on The Celebrity Apprentice, I knew she was competent and sharp. I made a note to set up a meeting to share with her my concerns about her father’s forgetfulness and strange behavior. I would often say, “He needs you. I’m glad you’re here.”

  I came up with the idea to hold a Women’s Empowerment Panel at the tail end of Women’s History Month in March and brought it up at a senior staff meeting.

  Kellyanne said, “Great idea! I’ll host it!”

  I was in favor of her moderating the panel and began planning it. Soon after, Reince called me into his office and said, “Drop Kellyanne from that panel. We want Pam Bondi instead.” Pam Bondi was the attorney general of the state of Florida, a longtime Trump ally. I asked Reince why they wanted Bondi over Kellyanne, and he shrugged. “We just think she’d be a better choice to be mistress of ceremonies.”

  It was my job to break the bad news to Kellyanne. I went to her office and told her straight up, “Hey, can we talk? I just came from Reince’s office and he told me they don’t want you for the Women’s Empowerment panel.”

  She opened her mouth in disbelief. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What gives Reince the right to decide who moderates the women’s panel?”

  Good question. It might have to do with the ongoing tension between the RNC people (Reince, et. al.) and the Trump campaign people, of which Kellyanne was one. It might have to do with Reince or Trump owing Bondi a favor. It might be because Bondi was an elected attorney general, a fresh face around the White House.

  In any case, Kellyanne was angry about it. She sulked for days about the slight. But, ever the calculating creature, she knew when to choose her battles. At the event—which Bondi hosted beautifully—Kellyanne sat in the front row, hugged all the panelists, and acted like the belle of the ball. She knew how to put on appearances, no matter how insulted and ignored she felt.

  On day seventy-eight, on April 7, Neil M. Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate to become a Supreme Court justice for life. This was a huge victory for Trump. He was, and is, obsessed with appointing judges to the bench who agree with his views. Someone told him that appointing Trump-like federal judges was the best way to extend the reach of his presidency far beyond his years in office. He might joke about getting rid of presidential term limits, but his real agenda is to ensure his legacy for decades to come in the judiciary. And if that doesn’t scare you, it should. He’s quietly succeeding at this.

  On day seventy-nine, I got married!

  Things in my professional life were hectic, but things in my personal life balanced them out. I was scheduled to get married to my handsome fiancé Reverend John Allen Newman, pastor of the Sanctuary @ Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, in early April. Several things happened that caused us to move our wedding from Jacksonville to DC. First, in February, at my final sermon and going-away ceremony at my home church in Los Angeles, the Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church, where I had served as assistant pastor under the senior pastor K. W. Tulloss for nearly ten years, we were besieged by a crowd of protesters. They blocked the front entrance of the church and held signs critical of the Trump administration. Then we got a series of threatening calls stating that protesters would show up at John’s church on our wedding day, too. I reported the issue to Secret Service and our personal security team, who advised me to consider moving the wedding to DC, where there was better jurisdiction if something should happen.

  With less than two months until my wedding we made the decision to move it to DC. We chose a venue just blocks from the White House—the Trump International Hotel was more than willing to accommodate us due to the extraordinary circumstances.

  The wedding was absolutely beautiful, with a cherry blossom theme to match the cherry blossom parade and festival held on the same day. One hundred and fifty guests enjoyed the seven-tier cake. Unfortunately, Donald was in Mar-a-Lago with the president of China and could not attend. Kellyanne and Sarah had thrown me a bridal party the day before at a restaurant across from the White House. It was truly the happiest day of my life. After the wedding and brunch at the hotel, we held an African-themed reception at the Park at Fourteenth. Our brunch the next day was held at the Four Seasons Hotel, where we continued to enjoy cherry blossom–themed confections. I was looking forward to our honeymoon and a much needed break. My husband chose Bellagio, Italy, on Lake Como, where George Clooney also has a home. The week in Italy flew by too quickly, and I had to get back to the swamp and to my responsibilities at the White House.

  Day eighty-three, Donald dropped the “Mother of All Bombs”—the most powerful conventional bomb in the American arsenal—into a cave network in Afghanistan. He was obsessed with it. He fixated on it for weeks afterward, and his retelling of the story seemed to edge out his constant recounting of Election Night for a time. If anyone went to his offices, he’d regale them by saying, “I was sitting there with my chocolate cake and they came in and told me, ‘We’re going to do it!’ and I gave the approval. I told them they could drop the ‘mother of all bombs. . . .’ ” He kept repeating it, almost like he was reliving it with whomever was in his company. “Did you see that ‘mother of all bombs’ drop?” A day later, “Oh my God, that ‘mother of all bombs!’ Did you see it?”

  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?

  But that could not be true. It was Donald! The man I’d known forever and known to be canny and crafty. He was just overwhelmed, as we all were, by the awesome responsibility of leading the nation.

  Day eighty-eight, on April 17, Melania Trump hosted the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which should have been an innocuous, nonpartisan event. Donald stood on the Truman Balcony with a man in a bunny suit. He looked stiff and uncomfortable and the memes were merciless, as was to be expected. Donald forgot to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem, and Melania had to give him a little nudge to remind him. The extended Trump family appeared, all the men in navy suits and all the women in sleeveless, formfitting dresses. In a past event, Obama read Where the Wild Things Are to the kids. Trump was not going to read in public if he could help it, not even a children’s book, so that duty fell on Melania, who entertained the kids by reading Kathie Lee Gifford’s Party Animals on the South Lawn with dignity and grace.

  But this was a controversial event, too. For starters, we couldn’t give tickets away. Obama’s last Easter Egg Roll drew a crowd of more than thirty-five thousand people to the White House. Trump’s first drew about twenty thousand. Crowd size was always a bone of contention, especially when Trump was compared to Obama. Not only was demand for tickets way down, the people who did show up were predominantly white. The lack of diversity during the Easter Egg Roll was pretty remarkable.

  The event was in conjunction with the social office, and the OPL was responsible for inviting different constituency groups
. I spent a week trying to line up diverse groups to participate in the Easter Egg Roll, but no one wanted to come!

  We were only a hundred days in. Any time now, things were going to settle down. We would stop defending tweets and work to achieve our goals. Once the protests died down, things would get back to normal.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  “I Think the President Is Losing It!”

  When I look back at the volume, depth, and the breadth of the work I had, I see that I couldn’t pause for a minute to evaluate what was going on outside the building. I couldn’t come up for air. I kept getting tackled by my own teammates, always playing defense. I was working as hard and as fast as I could—my schedule during Black History Month alone exhausts me just writing about it—but the headlines were always asking, “What’s she doing there?”

  The resentment and jealousy came at me from inside and outside the White House. I was taking hits from every direction. The fact that Donald had pulled out my chair at the listening session back in February made headlines, with high-level anonymous sources asking, “Can you imagine the president of the United States pulling out a chair for an aide?” It was impossible not to hear the condescending and racist overtones. Would people have said that if he pulled out a chair for Hope Hicks?

  The president was polite to me, and people criticized that gesture as an opportunity to put me in my place and to diminish me. And, it goes without saying, it completely ignored the purpose of the event itself—to build a bridge between the administration and the African American community. I was under such incredible scrutiny that I didn’t have the luxury of commiserating with anyone about it.