WASHINGTON (AP) — Omarosa Manigault Newman on Thursday released another secret audio tape that she says proves President Donald Trump wanted to silence her after firing her from the White House.
In the tape played on MSNBC, Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, offers Manigault Newman a job earning $15,000 a month. The job wouldn’t require her to report to any particular office or have a specific set of duties, other than to speak positively on Trump’s behalf as part of his re-election campaign.
Lara Trump, married to Eric Trump, can be heard on the tape noting a report in The New York Times that suggested Manigualt Newman had inside information that could be damaging to Trump.
“It sounds a little like, obviously, that there are some things you’ve got in the back pocket to pull out,” Lara Trump said. “Clearly, if you come on board the campaign, like, we can’t have, we got to … ”
Manigault Newman interjects: “Oh, God no.”
“Everything, everybody, positive, right?” Lara Trump asks.
The secret recording is one of several Manigault Newman has released this week to back up her claims in her new book, “Unhinged.”
A former contestant on his TV show “The Apprentice,” Manigault Newman was one of Trump’s most prominent African-American supporters during his campaign. He hired her to be a White House assistant, earning $179,000 a year as director of communications for the White House office of public liaison.
But she was deeply disliked by many of her colleagues and eventually was ousted by Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, for “significant integrity issues.”
According to other recordings released this week, Trump appeared to be in the dark on her December 2017 firing. And Kelly suggested “if we make this a friendly departure … you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
Manigault Newman alleges there is a tape of Trump using a racial slur while working on “The Apprentice.” Trump denies this, and has lashed out at his former aide on Twitter, calling her “wacky and deranged,” ”not smart,” and a “dog.”
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