They’re imitators. They’re operators. And they’re turning their teacher’s lessons against him.
The problem with being Donald Trump isn’t just being Donald Trump. It’s all the other, lesser Trumps around you. It’s the versions of yourself that you create, the echoes of yourself that you inspire. They’ll devour you in the end... From the master she learned how to draw and hold the spotlight: Mete out revelations. Hurl accusations. Contradict yourself. Leave everyone gasping, gawking and coming back for more... “Trump and Omarosa Are Kindred Spirits” reads the headline on a new Bloomberg column by Tim O’Brien.. The president, he notes, was “fascinated by her self-absorption and nastiness.” Trump stares into every mirror he passes.“She may be the purest of all the Trump characters,” an unnamed former Trump administration official told Axios’s Jonathan Swan. “She may be the most Trumpian.” No maybe about it.
She made secret tapes, just like Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer. No one should be surprised, least of all Trump. When you grease the walls of your sanctum with lies and put fun-house mirrors everywhere, is it any wonder that the dazed people inside try to protect themselves with a lifeline like proof?
And didn’t Trump himself record people who called him at Trump Tower and later taunt James Comey by suggesting that he had audio of their conversations? Imitation isn’t just the sincerest form of flattery. It’s the cleverest kind of revenge.
Ask Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’s lawyer. He’s flirting with a presidential bid or at least realizing that such a flirtation is a brand multiplier. Last week he visited Iowa, and not for the soybeans. He made a big speech. Said that when they go low, he’ll go subterranean. He’ll tunnel. He’ll spelunk.
He’s not just Trump’s adversary. He’s Trump’s analogue, with a similar timbre and bag of tricks. Like Trump, he vents his scorn in crude put-downs. Like Trump, he views media ubiquity as a credential in its own right.
.. Avenatti was “a perfect foil for Trump, because he actually sees the world just like Trump does.”.. In a way, Cohen sort of is Trump, too, with shady ties, bendy rules and limber ethics. His exposure is now Trump’s vulnerability. There’s actually a scene in Manigault Newman’s book where she and Cohen watch Trump eat a piece of paper rather than leave it around for presidential record-keepers... Manafort faked an altitude of affluence that he no longer possessed, forgoing any salary as Trump’s campaign chairman, because he suspected that this would impress Trump, who has exaggerated his own wealth.
- His hunger for attention became Rudy Giuliani; his
- thirst for pomp, Scott Pruitt; his
- taste for provocation, Avenatti; his t
- alent for duplicity, Manigault Newman.
They’re an army of emulators, adding up to Trump. And they’re on the march.
Trump Campaign Files Complaint Saying Ex-Staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman Breached Secrecy Pact
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign filed a complaint against former White House official and campaign aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, alleging she violated a confidentiality agreement signed during his 2016 presidential bid.
A Trump campaign official said in a brief statement Tuesday that the claim was filed with the American Arbitration Association of New York City. The statement doesn’t specify how Ms. Manigault Newman might have violated the agreement.
.. . On Twitter on Tuesday, he called Ms. Manigault Newman a “dog” while denying her contention that he used a racial slur.
.. Ms. Manigault Newman has said during her book promotions that she has heard a recording of Mr. Trump using the N-word racial slur. On Monday night, the president wrote on Twitter that Mark Burnett, the television executive who created Mr. Trump’s “Apprentice” franchise, had told him no tapes exist from the production of the show in which he used “such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa.”
“I don’t have that word in my vocabulary,” he wrote.
.. Mr. Kelly called Ms. Manigault Newman into the Situation Room last December and fired her, a meeting she recorded despite protocols barring staff from bringing electronic devices into the secure space in the White House basement.
Mr. Trump tweeted on Monday that Mr. Kelly had wanted to fire her immediately after becoming chief of staff last summer, but held off because the president believed she had said “only GREAT things about me.”
.. The last recording was aired Tuesday on CBS News. In it, Ms. Manigault Newman said, she and other campaign aides are heard discussing the possible existence of a tape in which Mr. Trump uses the N-word. One aide said she had talked to then-candidate Trump about the matter. The aide said she asked him, “Can you think of any time this might have happened, and he said, ‘No.’ ”
Ms. Manigault Newman is then heard saying, “Well, that’s not true.”
The first aide later said that Mr. Trump had told her, “Why don’t you just go ahead and put it to bed.”
Of course Omarosa has tapes
It’s hard to take Omarosa Manigault Newman’s word for anything. But Lordy, she has tapes, and they offer vivid proof that Donald Trump’s White House is part clown show, part nest of vipers.
.. she performed with Shakespearean villainy —
- lying,
- cheating,
- backstabbing,
- viciously advancing her own interests and
- sabotaging her rivals.
Trump evidently found all of this admirable, because he insisted on bringing her into his administration as a top-level adviser despite her utter lack of experience and qualifications. They deserve each other.
.. Omarosa’s recording of part of that meeting was aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” In it, Kelly is heard making what sounds very much like a threat:
“I think it’s important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure, we can all be, you know, we can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation. And then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
If that wasn’t clear enough, Omarosa subsequently received a generous offer. She could receive $15,000 a month to perform vaguely defined duties for Trump’s reelection campaign. But she would have to sign a nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreement pledging not to say detrimental things about President Trump, Vice President Pence or their family members.
.. She declined the offer but kept the documents she was asked to sign — and showed them to The Post last week.
.. She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me — until she got fired!”
.. Trump went on to complain that “the Fake News Media will be working overtime” to make Omarosa seem credible now that she is one of his critics. But that’s certainly not my intent. She strikes me as a rank opportunist whose only allegiance is to herself.
She claims to have realized only recently that Trump is a “racist, misogynist and bigot.” Yet she heard his bigoted attacks on Latino immigrants and still went to work for his campaign. She heard his misogynistic rant about how he sexually assaulted women and still took a job in his administration. She heard his many appeals to white racial grievance and still vigorously defended him, even after Charlottesville.
.. So no, I’m not inclined to believe anything she claims without documentary evidence to back it up. But the tapes and the documents have not been disputed. Omarosa may not have obtained them honorably, but the old saying is true: There is no honor among thieves.
.. We don’t know what else might be in the conversations with Trump that lawyer Michael Cohen taped. We don’t know how many other recordings Omarosa might have made. We don’t know who else in the White House might have been keeping their own unauthorized records of conversations and events.
What we do know is why people in Trump’s orbit feel they need such insurance: Dishonor and disloyalty start at the top.
Omarosa Manigault Newman releases recording purportedly made in White House Situation Room
The Washington Post reported Friday that after being fired, Manigault Newman declined a $15,000-a-month job offer from President Trump’s campaign, which came with a nondisclosure agreement stating that she could not make disparaging comments about the campaign, Trump, Vice President Pence, their families, any Trump or Pence family company or asset, and that the agreement would survive even if her contract expired, was canceled or she was fired. The Post obtained copies of what Manigault Newman said was the job offer and the companion agreement.
In her interview with Todd, Manigault Newman said she considered the offer an attempt to buy her silence. “They were not offering a real job,” she said. “They told me I could work from home, if I wanted to work. They didn’t care if I showed up.”