Weekly Review

Former director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison, adjunct professor at Howard University, and ordained Baptist minister Omarosa Manigault Newman published Unhinged, her memoir about her time as a reality-TV star and Trump Administration employee. In it, she writes that US president Donald Trump is “just on this side of functionally literate,” that he discussed being sworn in on The Art of the Deal and selling “commemorative copies,” and that he liked appointing generals to White House positions because it made him look “badass.”^{1 2 3} She alleges that Trump, who has publicly described secretary of education Betsy DeVos as “a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” privately nicknamed her “Ditzy DeVos” and promised to “get rid of her”; referred to “truly great” and “world-class legal mind” attorney general Jeff Sessions as “Benjamin Button” behind his back; alluded to ex-White House press secretary and “wonderful person” Sean Spicer as “Mr. Men’s Wearhouse”; said son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was “a little sweet,” his personal euphemism for homosexual; called Kellyanne Conway’s husband George the racial slurs “FLIP” and “Goo-goo” during a meeting; deemed his son Donald Trump Jr. “a fuck up”; and labeled the prime minister of Montenegro as a “whiny punk bitch” after shoving him out of the way during a NATO summit group photo.^{4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13} Manigault Newman, who denies reports that she was dragged from the White House by the Secret Service while screaming after being fired by White House chief of staff John Kelly, claims that she was terminated because of her knowledge of a tape recorded on the set of The Apprentice in which Trump uses the N-word.^{14 15}

In Georgia, state senator Michael Williams said that if Trump had been recorded using the N-word, it “would matter as an individual” but not “as the person who is running our country”; elections consultant Michael Malone, who has proposed a plan to “consolidate” seven of nine voting precincts in Randolph County, which is 60 percent black, has dismissed concerns of voter suppression as “gibberish”; and Josh Etheridge, police chief of Chatsworth, defended the use of a taser on an 87-year-old Syrian refugee when she was cutting dandelions near her home as “the lowest use of force” available to the three officers present to “stop that threat.”^{16 17 18} The Republican nominee for US Senate in Virginia posted a photoshopped picture of his Democratic opponent, Tim Kaine, greeting Joseph Stalin.¹⁹ US secretary of the interior Ryan Zinke, who has been investigated for violating the Hatch Act after tweeting a photo of himself wearing “Make America Great Again” socks, wore Ronald Reagan socks while touring the Carr fire sites in Northern California, and said that the wildfires were started by “environmental terrorist groups.”^{20 21 22} “He loves fun socks,” said Alex Hinson, his deputy press secretary. Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and currently one of Trump’s personal lawyers, explained that he does not want his client to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller because “truth isn’t truth.”²³

Scientists in France and Switzerland published a study that demonstrates a connection between the “teleological thinking” of creationists and conspiracy theorists.²⁴ “We think the message that conspiracism is a type of creationism that deals with the social world can help clarify some of the most baffling features of our so-called ‘post-truth era,’” said Dr. Sebastian Dieguez, who led the research. DNA research revealed that penguins do not mate for life, an Italian woman who reportedly wore a “decoy latex belly” in order to fake a pregnancy returned the mixed-race surrogate baby she had bought from a Romanian mother for 20,000 euros, and the 11-year-old bride of a Malaysian man was returned to her native Thailand.^{25 26 27} In New Zealand, an avocado shortage has sparked large-scale thefts.²⁸ “It’s an easy way to make a quick buck, but I don’t think we are dealing with a sophisticated or highly organized operation here,” said Jen Scoular, CEO of New Zealand Avocado.—Maude Doyle