Omarosa releases recording of offer from Lara Trump
Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman released a secret recording Thursday in a bid to bolster her contention that she was offered a $15,000-a-month contract from President Donald Trump’s campaign to stay silent after being fired from her job.
On the recording, campaign aide Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, can be heard discussing salary considerations and other aspects of a campaign job with Manigault Newman and makes clear that she expects her to be positive about the president.
The release of the recording, during an interview with MSNBC, was the latest escalation of Manigault Newman’s feud with Trump in the wake of the release of her tell-all book, “Unhinged,” which depicts Trump as racist and in mental decline.
Trump has disparaged Manigault Newman in recent tweets, calling her a “dog” and “lowlife,” among other things, and his campaign has filed an arbitration action in an attempt to silence her.
According to Manigault Newman, the recording made public Thursday is from Dec. 16, just days after she was fired from her job as a White House aide by Chief of Staff John Kelly for what Kelly has characterized as concerns about her ethics and integrity.
During their conversation released Thursday, Lara Trump references a New York Times article from the day before that included comments by Manigault Newman that were critical of her time working for Trump.
Manigault Newman says, for instance, that she, as the only African-American woman working in the White House, had seen things that upset her and considered that “a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.”
“It sounds a little like, obviously, that there are some things you’ve got in the back pocket to pull out,” Lara Trump is heard telling Manigault Newman. “Clearly, if you come on board, like, we can’t have -”
“Oh God, no,” Manigault Newman responds.
“Everything, everybody positive, right?” Lara Trump says.
The two go on to discuss salary, with Trump suggesting $15,000 a month would match the $179,000 annual salary Manigault Newman was making in the White House.
Trump also makes clear that Manigault Newman would have a lot of flexibility in where she works.
Manigault Newman ultimately refused the job, according to her book. The offer, she said, also came with a proposed nondisclosure agreement, which has recently been reviewed by The Washington Post.
The proposed agreement said that Manigault Newman could not make any comments about President Trump, Vice President Pence or their families or any comments that could damage the president. It said she would do “diversity outreach,” among other things, for the campaign.
“She made it very clear that if I joined this campaign I’d have to be quiet,” Manigault Newman told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin on Thursday, referring to her conversation with Lara Trump. “I saw this as an attempt to buy my silence.”
In a statement released after the television appearance, Lara Trump said that after Manigault Newman was fired by Kelly, “my entire family was concerned for her because we had no idea about the basis of her dismissal.”
“We still wanted her on the team because we cared so much about her personally,” Lara Trump said. “That’s why I reached out to her to offer her a position with the 2020 Trump Campaign before we knew anything about the gross violations of ethics and integrity during her White House tenure.”
White House aides have long described Manigault Newman as a problematic employee who tried to stage a wedding photo shoot at the White House, exploded at other West Wing aides and left shoes strewn around the West Wing.