Photo: Meet the Press
After previouslydenyingthatshe was firedfrom her position at the White House,Omarosa Manigault Newmanhas released a recording that allegedly proves Chief of Staff John Kelly not only fired her, but threatened her while doing so.
During an interview on Sunday with NBC’sMeet the Press, theApprentice-contestant-turned-Trump-aide shared a tape with the program that was allegedly recorded in secret while Kelly fired her in December 2017.
Before playing the tape, Manigault Newman — who served as the director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison — said that she made the recording in order to “protect myself” from false stories about her time in Trump administration. Manigault Newman told Todd that she has “no regret about” recording the interaction.
In the recording, a man purported to be Kelly tells the former White House aide, “It is important to understand that if we can make this a friendly departure.” Kelly adds that it would be necessary so that Manigault Newman could “go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
“It’s very obvious[ly] a threat,” Manigault Newman told host Chuck Todd. “He goes on to say that things can get ugly for you. The chief of staff of the United States under the direction of the president of the United States threatening me on damage to my reputation and things getting ugly for me — that’s downright criminal.”
Meet the Press
Manigault Newman told Todd, Sunday, that she believed that statement proved “Donald Trump has no idea what’s happening in the White House,” although she later admitted that after having “subsequent conversations” with Trump, he did know she was being fired.
Manigault Newman also addressed a claim made in her forthcoming tell-all memoirUnhingedthat Trump wasrecorded using the “N-word” in outtake footagefrom theApprentice.
“I heard this voice as clear as you and I are sitting here,” she told Todd, adding that once she actually heard the recording, “it was confirmed, what I feared the most: that Donald Trump is a con man and has been masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities.”
“But when he talks that way, the way he did on this tape, it confirmed that he is truly a racist,” she added.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also issued a statement saying thatUnhinged“is riddled with lies and false accusations,” adding that “it’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the president during her time in the administration.”
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Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who said he was cited as one of Manigault Newman’s sources, also spoke out against her claims.
“I’m in @Omarosa’s book on page 149. She claims to have heard from someone who heard from me that I heard Trump use the N-word. Not only is this flat-out false (I’ve never heard such a thing), but Omarosa didn’t even make an effort to call or email me to verify. Very shoddy work,” he wrote on Twitter.
“This is a man who is inclined to start racially charged engagement,” she added.
Unhingedwill be available Aug. 14.
source: people.com
