Omarosa Manigault Newman, a three-time contestant on NBC’s “The Apprentice,” volunteered to enter a surreal house in which minor celebrities, acting out under constant media surveillance, conspire to eject their rivals one by one.

Then she went on “Celebrity Big Brother.”

That it took the second experience (a CBS reality show) to get Ms. Newman to open up about the first (her tenure in Donald J. Trump’s White House) may not be the model of civic discourse that the founders envisioned. But it’s the one Americans voted for, and maybe the one we deserve.

Thus, one of the most dramatic exit interviews of this year-old administration transpired on a cushy sectional couch in the “Big Brother” house, between Ms. Newman, the former director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison, and Ross Mathews, a.k.a. “Ross the Intern” from Jay Leno’s “Tonight” show.