Critics fire zingers at Omarosa’s tell-all
Reality television star and former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” finally hit bookstore shelves on Tuesday, and judging by critics’ reactions, they’re not here to make friends.
In the book, Manigault Newman claims that she believes there’s a tape of President Trump saying the “N-word” and that the president is in a state of “mental decline.” She also claims Trump considered being sworn in as president with a copy of his book “The Art of the Deal” instead of a Bible.
At Entertainment Weekly, David Canfield slammed Manigault Newman’s book, describing it as “the ‘Fire and Fury’ sequel you never wanted” that is “the logical next step in our collective, steep, seemingly endless descent toward disgrace.”
“‘Unhinged’ is an illuminating, pathetic response to that [media] climate — the 2018 tell-all in its purest, saddest form,” Canfield writes.”Whether Manigault Newman is a savvy con artist developing her next act in entertainment or a lost soul helplessly seeking retribution is irrelevant.”
At the Week, reviewer Matthew Walther was also unimpressed. “The biggest problem with ‘Unhinged’ is not that it is ultimately a shaggy-dog story or that it is full of bad writing and atrociously edited, but simply that it is not convincing,” Walther writes.
Michelle Goldberg, writing for the New York Times, was more forgiving of Manigault Newman’s memoir, although she does call the former Trump aide “an amoral, dishonest, mercenary grifter.”
“In the end, you don’t have to trust her sincerity to see ‘Unhinged’ as a serious indictment of Trump.” Goldberg writes. “No matter how little credibility Manigault Newman has, the man who gave her a top-ranking job in his administration has less.”
The harshest criticisms of Manigault Newman have come from Trump himself. On Twitter, Trump denied her allegations of him using “that word” and blasted her, writing, “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”
Bad reviews haven’t seemed to dampen sales for the tell-all book, though, which has dominated headlines this past week, thanks to media appearances and discussions of the allegations she has lobbed against the Trump administration. Manigault Newman served as an assistant to Trump before being fired last December.
“I did have this blind spot, and I was blindly loyal, and I looked like the biggest dummy following this person because I didn’t have the same perspective,” Manigault Newman told Trevor Noah in an appearance on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night. “And sometimes, you have to step back in order to get a clear view. And I recognized that I was going down the wrong path with Trump.”
Manigault Newman’s book has been climbing the bestseller charts at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, where it reached No. 1 on the retailer’s website.