Omarosa Manigault Newman’s book tour is coming, and the media is salivating at the promise of dirt on the White House.
The problem, of course, is that to get any dirt out of her tell-all, the media will need to actually buy into the credibility of their source. And they never really did that when she was working for President Trump.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders made that point in a Friday statement. “It’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the president during her time in the administration,” Sanders said.
That’s perfectly fair. Another fair question would be why the White House employed the reality star (at maximum pay) for so long, given that the she does have a legitimate credibility problem. But either way, if the press eagerly affords Omarosa more credibility now than they would have before she left the administration in December, it will be telling.
People cited in the book, titled “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” have already rebutted stories involving themselves. Kellyanne Conway’s husband (who’s no fan of the president) called Omarosa’s reported allegation that Trump referred to him with racial epithets “ridiculous.” Or see this tweet from Frank Luntz:
I’m in @Omarosa’s book on page 149. She claims to have heard from someone who heard from me that I heard Trump use the N-word.
Not only is this flat-out false (I’ve never heard such a thing), but Omarosa didn’t even make an effort to call or email me to verify. Very shoddy work.
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) August 10, 2018
Skepticism of Omarosa’s claims was warranted when she was in the White House, and it’s warranted now too — perhaps even more so given that explosive allegations (like this one) will be good for her bank account. With the book set to hit shelves on Tuesday, and more sordid claims sure to surface, let’s try to be consistent and avoid giving allegations credibility they don’t deserve.
