Omarosa says unhinged Trump has ‘done nothing’ to curb violence in Chicago
Omarosa Manigault Newman, the ousted Trump administration aide and former reality TV star, said Monday that despite his repeated criticism of Chicago’s efforts to fight violence, the president has “done nothing” to help combat the problem.
Manigault Newman — who has been promoting her memoir, “Unhinged,” in advance of its release Tuesday — said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Velshi & Ruhle” that White House officials “were talking about early on doing something to help combat the violence in Chicago that we have seen rise to levels that are just unacceptable.”
President Donald Trump at times would express interest in helping Chicago’s anti-violence efforts, she said, and then later the same day he would completely contradict himself.
“And at one moment, he’s tweeting that he wants to do something about Chicago, and then the next minute, he’s complaining about the Democratic mayor of Chicago and saying just let the people die there,” she said.
She added: “And that’s not appropriate. And he has done nothing — by the way — to help combat the battles” in Chicago.
Manigault Newman also said in the interview that she believes Trump is not the same person she knew in 2013, saying he now has “some serious mental impairments.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment Monday evening.
Her comments on Chicago came after she released numerous audio recordings of her dealings in the White House, including one of Chief of Staff John Kelly as he informed her she was being fired from her job with the administration. She also released a recording of a phone conversation she had with Trump, during which he seemed unaware of her firing or why it took place.
“Nobody even told me,” Trump said on the recording.
After the recordings were made public, Trump lashed out at her on Twitter, calling her “Wacky Omarosa.”
She responded to Trump’s insults, saying: “It’s sad that with all the things that is going on in the country that he would take time out to insult me and to insult my intelligence. This is his pattern with African-Americans, and he doesn’t know how to control himself. He has no impulse control and he doesn’t have the tact for the presidency. It’s actually sad to watch him become unhinged.”
Manigault Newman also said on MSNBC she “absolutely” has more recordings but hasn’t decided whether she’ll release them. In the book, she reportedly claims without evidence that tapes exist of Trump using the N-word as he filmed his reality series, “The Apprentice,” on which she competed. Trump denied that in a tweet late Monday night, saying “there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa. I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, and never have. She made it up.”
Asked if City Hall had any comment on Manigault Newman’s remarks, or if the mayor’s office had discussed anti-violence efforts with the White House, mayoral spokesman Matt McGrath said in an email: “This sort of stuff has been covered extensively in your paper and elsewhere — the actual substance, and not the carnival barking.”
McGrath pointed to the Department of Justice’s move in June 2017 to assign about 20 additional agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to Chicago. Those agents were assigned a few months after Trump threatened on Twitter to “send in the Feds!” to quell the city’s shootings. Some 347 people have been killed in Chicago so far this year.