Former Trump White House staffer Omarosa Managault is making the media rounds. Suffice it to say that she has flipped her prior, highly-sycophantic position with regard to President Trump, and now says she regrets ever having worked with him and for him. All of which prompted Trump to a fit of apoplexy on Twitter:
These hilarious tweets raise some rather obvious questions about the way in which the White House functions. Here are just a few.
1. Who does the hiring over there? Trump seems to suggest that Omarosa was randomly hired and then fired. But Trump insisted on Omarosa being hired over the objections of people inside and outside the administration. She had a checkered employment history, a reputation for being nearly impossible to work with, and no resume to speak of in leading a significant office in the White House. So why did Trump hire her? After all, isn’t Trump supposed to be the guy who hires only the best people?
2. Why can’t Trump actually fire people? One of the most laugh-out-loud aspects of the Omarosa-Trump fight are the tapes in which Omarosa is informed by Chief of Staff John Kelly that she’s out, followed by the tape of Trump explaining he has no idea why anyone would say she’s out. “Omarosa? Omarosa, what’s going on?” Trump says on tape. “I just saw the news that you’re thinking about leaving? What happened?” It’s nearly impossible to imagine that Trump had no idea Omarosa was being ousted. It’s just that Trump actually hates firing people – he makes his subordinates do it (see Comey, James, and Tillerson, Rex).
3. Why does Trump hire crappy people? Trump made rather obvious why he hires people – and why he treats people kindly in general: they’re nice to him. His tweet about Omarosa being a garbage employee but a person who “only said GREAT things about me” rings absolutely true – he only wants to hear from people who blow smoke up his ass. That’s the real reason he treats Vladimir Putin with respect, as well as Kim Jung Un (so long as Kim is kissing his posterior). It’s not that Trump is in league with the world’s worst people. It’s that anyone who praises him is now considered an ally, and anyone who criticizes him immediately becomes an enemy.
4. Can Trump clamp down on staffing chaos? Turnover at the administration has been extraordinarily high. That’s because Trump doesn’t mind chaos around him – he actually enjoys the competition for attention among his subordinates. As Trump writes in his Omarosa tweets, he likes viciousness. The problem is that this generates both headlines and conflicts that damage his administration. The policy from the administration has been, on the whole, quite good; the stories emerging from the administration about the lack of organization from within aren’t. That problem starts at the top.
5. Does Omarosa actually have anything? At this point, it seems deeply unlikely that Omarosa has anything. She’s merely the latest disgruntled employee to suggest that she has dirt and then deliver little of consequence (see Bannon, Steve). The lack of damaging material actually suggests that Trump doesn’t say quite as many nutty things as his detractors claim behind closed doors. But it’s obvious that Trump needs to clean house in a much more thoroughgoing fashion if this sort of nonsense is ever to stop.