Former Apprentice star and aide to President Donald Trump Omarosa Manigault-Newman on Sunday appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss her time working in the White House and her book about the experience, Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.
To begin her interview with host Chuck Todd, Manigault-Newman addressed a rumored tape of Trump saying the N-word — something Tom Arnold has threatened to release publicly in the past. “I have heard the tape … I know it exists and what I regret is that these people are trying to leverage it as an October surprise. I don’t want to be a part of it,” Manigault-Newman said.
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“Once I heard it, it was confirmed what I feared the most: Donald Trump is a con … it confirmed he is truly a racist,” she continued.
When Todd asked why this information didn’t make it into her book, Manigault-Newman said that it had been finished before she heard the tape.
She also went on to say that Trump had never used the N-word in her presence, but said it was possible he had said it about her when she was not present. “Donald Trump talks about everyone behind their backs,” she said. “He has a nickname for everyone in his circle, so I am certain he has said some negative things about me.”
Manigault-Newman joined the Trump administration in January 2017 as a White House communications director and left after a year into the position. She has since spoken critically of her experience.
On Saturday, Trump himself responded to Manigault-Newman and her new book, calling her a “lowlife.”
“That is a man who is inclined to start racially charged engagement and use race to stir up his base,” Manigault-Newman told Todd of Trump’s “lowlife” comment.
Of her time working in Trump’s White House, Manigault-Newman said she was “complicit in deceiving this nation.”
When Todd showed a clip of Manigault-Newman defending Trump’s comments on the events last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, the former aide said it was an example of complicity. “I had a blind side when it came to Donald Trump. I wanted to see the best of him,” she said. “It’s really difficult to see that I was so much a part of this.”
Regarding her leave from the White House, Manigault-Newman said it was “very clear” that she was let go. “They take me into the Situation Room and start to threaten me,” she said.
Manigault-Newman had secretly recorded her conversation with General John Kelly and defended that decision to Todd by saying, “If I did not have this recording, people would still believe the false story … that I tried to charge the residence of the White House. If I didn’t have this recording, people would still think I was trying to set off alarms.”
When asked directly if she regretted being on The Apprentice and first getting into business with Trump, Manigault-Newman said she does not. “It changed my life,” she said.
Watch the full interview, below.
