By Paul Waldman

Special To The Washington Post

When you make a reality TV star the president, you're going to get a reality show White House. And when that reality TV star is Donald Trump, the reality show will have a particular character, one in which amid all the chaos and backstabbing is a cult of personality that takes precedence over any conception of public service or public good.

So it is that former "Apprentice" contestant and White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman has grabbed the spotlight with a provocative tell-all book and round of media interviews, a development that was predictable from the season's first episode. While much of the attention is focused on all the interpersonal nastiness and allegations of things like the president being on tape using the n-word (would anyone be surprised?), I'd like to focus on one thing Omarosa has brought to light that isn't in dispute.

Among her charges are that she was asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement and offered a $15,000-a-month "job" after she left the White House in order to keep her in line. As she said yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press, "In fact, there are several former employees from the White House who actually signed this agreement, who are all being paid $15,000 for their silence."

So far, the White House has not denied this claim. In fact, on ABC's This Week, Kellyanne Conway said, "We have confidentiality agreements in the West Wing, absolutely we do. And why wouldn't we?"

There are a number of reasons, but the question that needs to be answered is what exactly those confidentiality agreements entail. Because they are absolutely not standard practice in the White House. Employees who deal with classified information may have to sign an agreement pledging not to reveal that information, but it sounds like the White House is requiring broader agreements from its employees, which would put us in new territory. One critical question is whether the agreements signed by White House staff include non-disparagement clauses, which would be not just unprecedented but shocking.

Remember: Throughout his career, Donald Trump required his employees to sign nondisclosure agreements that not only stopped them from revealing what they had seen, but also forbade them from ever saying anything uncomplimentary about Trump, his family, his company, or his products. This then carried over into his presidential campaign, which required even volunteers to pledge not to disparage Trump for the rest of their lives.

The document Omarosa made public (which is an agreement not with the government but with the Trump re-election campaign) contained this clause, using almost identical language as the document people on the campaign signed:

"During the term of your service, and at all times thereafter, you hereby promise and agree not to demean or disparage publicly, in any form or through any medium, the Campaign, Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence, any Trump or Pence Company, any Trump or Pence Family Member, or any Trump or Pence Family Member Company or any asset any of the foregoing own, or product or service any of the foregoing offer, in each case by or in any of the Restricted Means and Contexts."

We don't know whether the Trump White House NDAs include such a clause, but if they do, it's quite frankly appalling. And while Kellyanne Conway's admission yesterday that White House staff had to sign NDAs is the first official confirmation of that fact, The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus reported it in March:

"In the early months of the administration, at the behest of now-President Trump, who was furious over leaks from within the White House, senior White House staff members were asked to, and did, sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information and exposing them to damages for any violation. Some balked at first but, pressed by then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and the White House Counsel's Office, ultimately complied, concluding that the agreements would likely not be enforceable in any event.

"The nondisclosure agreements, said a person who signed the document, 'were meant to be very similar to the ones that some of us signed during the campaign and during the transition. I remember the president saying, "Has everybody signed a confidentiality agreement like they did during the campaign or we had at Trump Tower?"'"

The draft agreement Marcus saw not only required those who signed it not to reveal what they saw in the White House for the rest of their lives, it also said that if they violated it they'd have to pay a $10 million penalty. That requirement may not have made it to the final version because it's so patently bonkers. But it's reminiscent of the NDA signed by Stormy Daniels, which said that if she spoke of her affair with Trump she'd have to pay him $1 million for every violation.

So what does this tell us about the Trump presidency? It's important to understand that even though the president hires and fires White House employees, they don't work for the president, they work for the United States of America. Yet it's clear that when you work for Donald Trump you're expected to hold the aggrandizement of Donald Trump as your highest and most important goal.

Monday morning, Trump sent out a trio of tweets about Omarosa, and as they so often do, they revealed the contents of his mind:

"Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard. . .."

"...really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me - until she got fired!"

"While I know it's 'not presidential' to take on a lowlife like Omarosa, and while I would rather not be doing so, this is a modern day form of communication and I know the Fake News Media will be working overtime to make even Wacky Omarosa look legitimate as possible. Sorry!"

So Trump's story is that he hired Omarosa knowing that she was a "lowlife"; she turned out to be a disastrous employee just as he knew she would be; but he nonetheless wanted to keep her in the White House "because she only said GREAT things about me."

In other words, showering Trump with praise is the most important thing anyone can do, more important than being good at their job, creating a healthy work environment, or even working constantly to undermine American interests. During the 2016 campaign, whenever someone would challenge Trump about his admiration for Vladimir Putin, Trump would counter that what was really important is that Putin "said very nice things about me." The entire world has gotten the message: There's no simpler way to manipulate Trump than by telling him how great he is.

Nobody understands that better than the people who work in the White House. And if they ever forget, they may have to sign a document promising to do nothing but praise him for as long as they live.

-- Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plum Line blog.