Trump in the Omarosa Tape: Is He a Lying Coward, or Impotent and Clueless

On Friday, I wrote that it was absurd, given her personal lack of credibility, that most of the news media is taking former reality show villain Omarosa and her new book about the Trump White House very seriously.

So far, my prediction that she would not have any “bombshell” information which could be relied upon has turned out to be completely accurate.

However, the tape she released on the Today Show on Monday, while in some ways irrelevant, has actually, perhaps inadvertently, given us some new insight into how Trump really operates and why we should all be concerned. In short, the tape appears to prove that Trump is either a lying coward, or so out of the loop that he really is ‘president in name only’ (or, at least that this was the case at the end of last year).

First, let’s stipulate that the hiring of Omarosa in the first place should be a significant dark mark against this president and his administration. It is hilariously hypocritical, even by Trump standards, for the president, his underlings, and even the Republican Party twitter feed to brutally disparage her and mock her credibility when it was very well known who she was before they gave her what was a significant White House job.

Special condemnation, at least in a rational world, should be reserved for the president making it clear that Omarosa was perfectly fine until she committed the Cardinal Sin of being critical of him personally.

In a sense, they are all like the proverbial kid who complains about being an orphan after having killed his own parents. This whole ridiculous fiasco is clearly their fault!

As for the new tape itself, Trump is heard on the phone with Omarosa claiming that he had absolutely no idea what was going on, while expressing shock and disappointment that she had been fired. On the surface, the call sounds exactly like it would have if Trump was still living in New York and hosting The Apprentice and Omarosa had been fired by some other, obviously fictional, presidential administration.

If this perception of him as mere figurehead is even remotely accurate, it is potentially far more politically damaging to Trump, the allegedly very powerful alpha-male, than if there was a tape of him and Vladimir Putin conspiring against Hillary Clinton while speaking Russian. It makes Trump sound extremely weak, clueless, out of the loop, and utterly powerless – exactly the path his critics should take against him if they want to harm him with his cult-like base of support.

I have always felt that the media and the Democratic Party have taken the completely wrong strategy when it comes to combating Trump. Even during the 2016 election when we all thought Trump would lose, I was constantly chiding my good friend Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth that portraying him as a politically incorrect bully was playing with fire. That’s because, to non-liberals, it made him appear to be strong; a politically incorrect bully is exactly what that base idolizes.

Trump’s greatest vulnerability is that his entire persona is a fraud. He is not super rich. He is not a great negotiator or businessman. He is not very smart. He is not strong. He is not even really a fighter. And many of the people around him don’t even respect him enough to even take him seriously.

While most of his critics have portrayed him as the evil and powerful “Wizard of Oz”, it has always been clear to me that his greatest vulnerability is that he is really the old man hiding behind the curtain, afraid of being exposed for the fraud that he is. That may be exactly why the release of today’s tape provoked Trump to needlessly go on a vicious attack against Omarosa on twitter.

Of course, there is another scenario to explain the nature of the phone call between Trump and Omarosa. This is that Trump was simply lying to her about his lack of knowledge because, like a lot of bullies, he is just incredibly afraid of personal conflict, even when he is clearly in the far more powerful position.

Omarosa herself, who would now much prefer the “Trump isn’t really even president” narrative to help sell her book, acknowledges that this interpretation is indeed possible. While inherently difficult to discern via an audio recording, Trump’s manner certainly seems consistent with him faking his ignorance because he was afraid of facing her wrath. Though this then begs the question as to why he would bother to even call her at all.

As is often the case with interpreting the actions of Donald Trump, he is a human Rorschach test. If you think he is a clueless buffoon, you likely conclude that he really was totally out of the loop on this. If you view him as a conniving liar (which most of his supporters are perfectly fine with), then you probably believe that he was just playing her so that she wouldn’t cause more problems moving forward.

If you see him as conniving and buffoonish, afraid of conflict and untroubled by lying to people with whom he is close, then you probably have no problem accepting all of this as being probably true.

Remind me again when any of these possibilities became acceptable in a president of the United States? Also, do you think Trump brings Omarosa back in season three, or will he wait until the series finale?

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John Ziegler hosts a weekly podcast focusing on news media issuesand is documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud  or email him at johnz@mediaite.com

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[Featured Photo by Michael Reynolds – Pool/Getty Images]

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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