Trump, former aide trade insults, charges
Dispute highlights lack of diversity among top staff
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman faced off Monday in a clash that involved an explosive tellall book, secret recordings and plenty of insults — reviving their roles as reality show boss and villain.
Trump accused Manigault Newman, the former White House liaison to black voters, as “wacky” and “not smart” after his former co-star revealed her recording of a phone conversation with the president during a media blitz for her new book.
Beyond their war of words, the row touched on several sensitive issues in Trump’s White House, including a lack of racial diversity among senior officials, security in the executive mansion, a culture that some there feel borders on paranoia and the extraordinary measures used to keep ex-employees quiet.
In an unusual admission, Trump acknowledged that the public sparring was perhaps beneath a person in his position, tweeting that he knew it was “not presidential” to take on “a lowlife like Omarosa.”
The dispute has been building for days as Manigault Newman promotes her memoir “Unhinged,” which comes out officially on Tuesday. The book paints a damning picture of Trump, including her claim that he used racial slurs on the set of his reality show “The Apprentice.”
In a series of interviews on NBC, Manigault Newman also revealed two audio recordings from her time at the White House, including portions of a recording of her firing by chief of staff John Kelly, which she says occurred in the high-security Situation Room, and a phone call with Trump after she was fired.
Trump officials and a number of outside critics denounced the recordings as a serious breach of ethics and security.
The latest tape recording appears to show Trump expressing surprise about her firing, saying “nobody even told me about it.” But Manigault Newman said he “probably instructed General Kelly to do it.”
Manigault Newman’s exit does highlight the lack of diversity among Trump’s top aides. She was the highest-ranking AfricanAmerican on the White House staff.
Trump’s battle with his former top black aide underscores the racial tensions that have defined his presidency. He notably blamed “both sides” for violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., a year ago and has questioned the intelligence of other prominent black figures including California Rep. Maxine Waters, basketball star LeBron James and TV journalist Don Lemon. He also has targeted black NFL players for kneeling in social protest during the national anthem.
Manigault Newman also alleges that Trump allies tried to buy her silence after she left the White House, offering her $15,000 a month to accept a “senior position” on his 2020 reelection campaign along with a stringent nondisclosure agreement.
The offer raises fresh questions about the ways that White House aides are being offered safe landing spots after they leave. For example, Trump’s former personal aide John McEntee, who was removed from his job in April, went to the campaign.
Meanwhile, Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said on “Fox and Friends” on Monday that Manigault Newman may have broken the law by recording private conversations inside the White House.
But experts in national security and clearance law said that, while she seriously violated rules she probably didn’t break any law unless the conversations she recorded were classified.
In the recording with Kelly, which Manigault Newman quotes extensively in her new book, Kelly can be heard saying that he wants to talk with her about leaving the White House.
“It’s come to my attention over the last few months that there’s been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you,” Kelly is heard saying, before adding that if she makes it a “friendly departure” then she can “go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
Manigault Newman said she viewed the conversation as a “threat” and defended her decision to covertly record it and other White House conversations, saying otherwise “no one” would believe her.
She may not be finished talking. “There’s a lot of very corrupt things happening in the White House and I am going to blow the whistle on a lot of them,” Manigault Newman said.