Omarosa Manigault Newman trashes Education Secretary Betsy DeVos throughout her book and calls the Trump Cabinet official "woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job." | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo Omarosa: DeVos said black college students lack the ‘capacity to understand’ her agenda

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos allegedly said the students who booed her May 2017 commencement speech at a historically black college didn't have the "capacity to understand" what she wants to accomplish, according to the tell-all book by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Manigault Newman describes DeVos' comments during a conversation with her after the May address at Florida's Bethune-Cookman University as "meaning, all those black students were too stupid to understand her agenda."


Manigault Newman trashes DeVos throughout the book and calls her "woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job." She alleges President Donald Trump referred to the education secretary as "Ditzy DeVos" and promised to "get rid of her" after the Bethune-Cookman event.

In the book, "Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House," Manigault Newman also blames DeVos for confusion around an annual conference in Washington, D.C., for historically black colleges and universities, which the administration downsized in September 2017. She writes that DeVos was the "number one driver for cancellation."

"This disgraced former White House employee is peddling lies for profit. The book is a joke as are the false claims she’s making about Secretary DeVos," said Liz Hill, press secretary to DeVos.

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The White House has pushed back strongly against the book, and the president has labeled Manigault Newman "wacky," "deranged" and a "dog" in posts to his Twitter account this week. Trump's presidential campaign has also filed for arbitration proceedings against her.

The Trump administration — and DeVos in particular — have had a rocky relationship with black colleges. DeVos famously issued a statement equating the history of the schools — founded during an era of racial segregation — to “school choice” policies. She later apologized.

Manigault Newman, an HBCU graduate who spearheaded the Trump administration's outreach to those schools, was herself a polarizing figure in that role.

But she says in her book that she was the one who drove Trump to sign a much-ballyhooed executive order designed to woo the schools. That order said his administration would move an initiative aimed at boosting HBCUs from the Education Department to the White House — a move that many college leaders had hoped would give them a direct line to the president.

Manigault Newman writes that she tried to forge a relationship with DeVos — though she said she sat near DeVos in Cabinet meetings and determined "there is no way she should be the secretary of education" — because Manigault Newman "was on a mission for increased education funding for HBCUs and wasn't ready to give up on involving the secretary of education in the pursuit."

Graduating seniors boo Betsy DeVos at commencement in Florida

She traveled with DeVos to Daytona Beach, Florida, for the Bethune-Cookman commencement address, despite writing that it was clear "[no] one wanted DeVos to speak at their school, and her visits were written off as photo ops only."

The trip did not go well, in Manigault Newman's telling.

"Betsy got up onstage to give her speech and was immediately, loudly booed by the entire audience," Manigault Newman writes. "Graduating students and their families stood up and turned their backs on her. I was seated onstage watching this travesty unfold. When the booing started, she should have wrapped it up, but she went on and on for twenty minutes, talking over the booing. I was thinking, It’s not about you! Abandon your full speech! Adjust, woman!" Manigault Newman described it as "painful to experience."

After the speech, Manigault Newman writes that she asked DeVos how she thought it went, to which she says DeVos responded, "I did great!"

"I must have looked stunned," she writes. Then DeVos allegedly added: “They don’t get it. They don’t have the capacity to understand what we’re trying to accomplish.”

"Meaning, all those black students were too stupid to understand her agenda," Manigault Newman writes.

Manigault Newman says she told DeVos, “Oh, no, Madam Secretary. They get it. They get it, and they aren’t happy about you or your goals.”

The next day, Manigault Newman writes, she was ditched at the hotel by DeVos, who allegedly told her, "sorry, we had to leave early. Change of plans. Take an Uber.”

Manigault Newman says she returned to D.C. and complained directly to Trump, who, she says, "shook his head in disgust" and said, “She is Ditzy DeVos, what do you expect? In a very short period of time, I will get rid of her. Believe me, believe me.”

Later in the book, Manigault Newman claims that DeVos "went to John Kelly and asked him to force me to cancel" the annual HBCU conference, referring to Trump's chief of staff.

The administration was under pressure from college leaders and some members of Congress to delay it after Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

But Manigault Newman writes that she was determined that it go on. She convinced Kelly to let it continue, but "that if it failed, I would own it solely."

"I heard from a member of the HBCU staff that DeVos was livid that the event was moving forward," she writes. "A week after my meeting with General Kelly, Betsy DeVos tried to shut down the event by sending out a blast notice that it was off, and then she canceled the contract with the conference’s hotel. By doing so, she cost the US government $75,000 in cancellation fees. She did not care!"

Manigault Newman claims she turned to Trump for help and he supported her. The administration hosted a much smaller event at the White House, organized by Manigault Newman. But she claims that "Secretary DeVos refused to give opening remarks" at the event.

"I turned to the president again," Manigault Newman wrote. "As a result, the head of Cabinet Affairs, Bill McGinley, told her she had to give the opening remarks."