Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman said in an interview that aired on Tuesday that Vice President Pence is dangerous because he does not push back on controversies surrounding President Trump.
“I had high hopes that Mike Pence would balance out Donald Trump, particularly on some of the stuff that people would perceive as morally compromising,” Manigault Newman told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons on Monday.
Manigault Newman specifically cited Trump’s alleged affair with adult-film star Stormy Daniels and comments saying both sides were responsible for racially charged violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year, among other controversies.
She said she thought Pence was “supposed to be the voice of reason.”
“[Pence] has not said anything, and he was supposed to be the voice of reason. There’s something very dangerous about a man who would stand there even though he talks so openly about his moral position in this administration and he has made no gestures whatsoever to push back. That’s where I have a problem,” she said.
Manigault Newman is promoting her new book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.”
In the book, she writes that Pence’s aides often jokingly refer to him as president.
“Jokingly, in private, I heard people say things like, ‘When we’re in charge …’ or ‘Once you become president …’,” she writes. “The first thing I noticed was that people on his staff kept slipping up and calling him president — accidentally sometimes.”
Manigault Newman said she believes Pence has presidential aspirations when asked if he wanted to be president.
“You’re trying to get me to give away the best scene in the book, which is talking to his family and the things that they said about him wanting to be president. So, yes,” she said.
— Julia Manchester
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