Omarosa Manigault Newman’s tell-all memoir is already stirring up controversies and it hasn’t even been released yet. A number of media outlets have reported some of the book’s claims — one of which has haunted President Trump since he announced he was running for office: a tape of him using the N-word during filming for NBC’s The Apprentice. Newman starred on the show before joining Trump’s White House as an aide, only to be fired after a year. She discussed the tape, while also releasing one of her own, on Sunday’s Meet the Press.
In Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House, Newman merely describes hearing about the N-word tape. But she told NBC’s Chuck Todd that after the book went to press, she was able to actually listen to it. “I have heard for two years that [the video] existed, and once I heard it for myself, it was confirmed, what I feared the most: That Donald Trump is a con and has been masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities,” Newman said.
She continued, “But when he talks that way, the way he did on this tape, it confirmed that he is truly a racist.”
According to Newman, the person with the tape is “so afraid because of the forces who are working” to keep it from coming out. Even as members of the Trump administration continue to deny the existence of the tape — White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Newman’s entire book is “riddled with lies and false accusations” — Katrina Pierson, the spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, has apparently known about it for awhile. “Oh, he said it. It’s true,” Pierson allegedly said when discussing the tape in front of Newman.
Though Trump has “said inappropriate things,” in Newman’s presence, she said he never used the N-word in front of her. However, she doesn’t doubt that he’s used it to describe her. “Donald Trump talks about everyone behind their back,” she said. “I am pretty certain that he’s probably said some very derogatory things about me.”
Newman cited Trump’s recent remark about her as an example. “Yesterday, on this moment before the anniversary of Charlottesville, instead of talking about how it unified the nation, he actually insulted me by calling me a ‘low-life,'” she said, referring to Trump’s public comment about her on Saturday and the anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Virginia. “That is a man who is inclined to start racially charged engagement and use race to stir up his base.”
Todd pointed out that Trump has been subject to accusations of racism before, many of which occurred while Newman was campaigning or working for him. “You acknowledged that [Trump] used race to manipulate people. And then you wrote this in December of 2016: ‘I am living the American dream because of Donald Trump. Look at my career, the wealth and exposure that I’ve had: It’s very difficult to make the argument that Donald Trump doesn’t like black people and black women,'” Todd said.
Newman recognized her complicity, but also said that she was being used by Trump. “I was like the frog in the hot water. You don’t know that you’re in that situation until it just keeps bubbling and bubbling,” she said. “But what I know now, I didn’t have the benefit of in 2003, or 2004, or 2010. And so yes, it is hindsight. But I will say this to you, I was complicit with this White House deceiving this nation.”
She continued, “[The White House] continues to deceive this nation by how mentally declined he is, how difficult it is for him to process complex information, how he is not engaged in some of the most important decisions that impacts our country. I was complicit and for that I regret.”
Newman told Todd she specifically regrets defending Trump after he condemned “many sides” of Charlottesville. “In fact, I had a blind spot where it came to Donald Trump. I wanted to see the best in him,” she said. “And obviously I, I felt miserably. Because after that he gets up and he says that there are good people on both sides, when he should have been denouncing what we saw as, clearly, racist Nazis going against the grain of this country. And it’s just really difficult to see that I was so much a part of this. And I accept and I admit that I was.”
As for how she departed the administration, Newman said it was “very clear” that she was let go. She then provided an audio recording of what she said is White House chief of staff John Kelly firing her in 2017. In it, the voice Newman claims is Kelly’s cites “significant integrity issues” when explaining her dismissal.
Newman defended her decision to record a conversation in the top-secret Situation Room, where Trump and top officials address major national security crises — and where personal cell phones are banned — 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. And it’s a lie. If I didn’t have this recording, people would still think I was trying to set off alarms.”
She added that she wanted to protect herself “because this is a White House where everybody lies.”
“The president lies to the American people,” Newman said. “Sarah Huckabee stands in front of the country and lies every single day. You have to have your own back because otherwise you’ll look back and you’ll see 17 knives in your back.”
During her conversation with Kelly, Newman said the doors to the Situation Room were locked, she wasn’t allowed to leave, and she was threatened. She also said that the Trump campaign offered her a job if she would sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevented her from speaking critically about her time with the campaign and the White House. She provided what she claimed were copies of those agreements to Meet the Press.
Newman will continue her publicity tour for Unhinged this week.