Chuck Todd, the moderator of NBC’s venerable “Meet the Press,” lowered himself to the absolute nadir of American journalism last Sunday by granting 20 minutes of national TV airtime to a sleazy reality TV person named Omarosa Manigault-Newman, or just plain “Omarosa.” She proceeded to brand her benefactor, President Donald J. Trump, as a mentally challenged “racist,” among other egregious insults. Todd and NBC should be ashamed of themselves.
In their relentless campaign to destroy President Trump, NBC and other mainstream media outlets will do almost anything to disparage the president, including broadcasting and/or publishing interviews with people who have zero credibility — people like Omarosa. My loyal readers know I’m not a fan of President Trump, who’s an ignorant, egotistical bully, but come on folks, fair is fair and interviewing people like Omarosa is a bridge too far, even for journalists who hate our president.
After Todd allowed Omarosa to babble on for 20 minutes about what a terrible person Trump is, a panel of allegedly erudite Washington journalists commented on the unhinged interview as if it was a serious, newsworthy topic for discussion. Please! And oh by the way, “Unhinged” is the title of Omarosa’s new book about working in a dysfunctional White House. I don’t know who’s more unhinged, Trump or Omarosa. Draw your own conclusions.
So Omarosa is selling a book, and she’ll do or say anything to sell it. That’s how life is in Reality TV World, which produced both Omarosa and Trump. She was fired three times on Trump’s reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” but went on to parlay her dubious Trump connection into a low-level job in his White House. That tells you everything you need to know about personnel practices in Trump’s White House. Anyone who hires someone like Omarosa deserves to pay a high price for exercising bad judgment.
Omarosa, an African-American woman, told Todd she was “complicit” in White House efforts to deceive the nation on a wide variety of issues including race relations. “I was like a frog in hot water,” she said. “You don’t know you’re in that situation until it just keeps bubbling and bubbling.” Nevertheless, she championed Trump throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and during her tenure at the White House.
President Trump called Omarosa a “dog” and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders described her as “a disgruntled former employee,” which is what she is as well as a disloyal, publicity-seeking reality TV dropout. Other than that, she’s probably a fine person.
Omarosa broke the rules, and maybe the law, when she recorded a Situation Room conversation in which White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly fired her. Kelly told Omarosa it was time for her to leave because of “significant integrity issues” related to “use of government vehicles,” and other issues. (I apologize for using the words “Omarosa” and “integrity” in the same sentence). Omarosa says Kelly is now running the White House because of Trump’s “declining mental capacity.”
A USA Today book review noted Omarosa, who was loyal to Trump for 14 years before and after he became president, “now believes Trump is a racist, a bigot and a misogynist.” And not only that, “He’s in mental decline and physically unwell,” and once used the “N” word. This from someone who urged African-Americans to vote for Trump in 2016 and served as his outreach person to Black America.
Well, I guess reality TV and politics make strange bedfellows. I think President Trump and Omarosa deserve each other. Don’t buy her book.
Guy W. Farmer is the Appeal’s senior political columnist.