Unhinged An insider's account of the Trump White House

Omarosa may call Donald Trump unhinged, but by her own admission, she was complicit in the antics of his administration. Although it's her disclosures about Trump that have made the headlines he didn't want to be left by himself at an African American church; he can't remember bullet points; he drinks eight Diet Cokes a day (the latter, Omarosa claims, leads to dementia) this book is in many ways more the story of someone who happily gives up her principles to pursue a greater public image. An Obama supporter who was active in Hillary Clinton's primary campaign, Omarosa was peeved when no call came from Hillary's team asking her to work in the general election. So, principles tossed, she threw in with Trump and, as she admits here, ignored what was going on around her when it came to the African American outreach she was charged with performing. In fact, she ignored most everything else going on around Trump, too. After the Access Hollywood tape dropped, for instance, she says, "But because of my blind spot, or my history with him, or just because I couldn't allow myself to believe it, I tried to rationalize it. Some combination of those words follows when she discusses nearly every disturbing Trump incident during her time in the administration. Even though she writes that Charlottesville was the last straw, she stayed on until fired by General John Kelly in December 2017. Readers can be forgiven if they have the impression that, without Kelly's push, she'd be there still. Like many books of this ilk, this one is likely to have a short shelf life hot at first and then quickly very cold. On the other hand, it's reported that Omarosa has taped 200 or so conversations with Trump, and when those are released, we'll be hearing more from her.--Ilene Cooper Copyright 2018 Booklist

In this venomous tell-all, the Trump presidency resembles the reality show that birthed it. Newman recounts her journey from a 2004 turn on the Trump-hosted television competition The Apprentice-where, she candidly recounts, she crafted a provocative, troublemaking persona to succeed-to her work on his presidential campaign and 2017 stint in the White House Office of Public Liaison, where, as one of the administration's few African-American staffers, she struggled to spin his policies to women and minorities. She describes her gradual emergence from blind loyalty to the "cult" of "Trumpworld" into viewing the president as "a racist, a bigot and a misogynist" who is "just this side of functionally illiterate" and suffering "mental decline," which she blames for his tweets. Newman is similarly cutting about other administration figures like Kellyanne Conway ("a calculat[ing] swamp monster") and first daughter Ivanka, who, Newman alleges, manipulates Trump's purported quasi-incestuous infatuation with her. Few of these accusations are new; Newman's splashiest revelation is her unverified claim to have a tape of Trump using the n-word. (She has released tapes that confirm her account of her firing and contradict what Trump and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said about it.) This entertaining, gossipy memoir of White House dysfunction will be catnip to scandal lovers. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.