The White House on Thursday fired back at former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman after she made critical comments on “Celebrity Big Brother” about President Trump and her time at the White House.
In a clip from the show released earlier in the day, Manigault Newman said she was “haunted” by Trump’s tweets and attacked by colleagues when she tried to intervene.
“It’s going to not be OK, it’s not. It’s so bad,” she told fellow cast member Ross Matthews while wiping away tears.
{mosads}When asked about the White House’s reaction, deputy press secretary Raj Shah said the administration isn’t taking her comments seriously and noted that Manigault Newman currently has no contact with the president, whom she first met while a contestant on NBC’s “The Apprentice.”
“Omarosa was fired three times on ‘The Apprentice,’ and this was the fourth time we let her go,” Shah told reporters during a press briefing.
“She had limited contact with the president while here. She has no contact now.”
Manigault Newman, who served as director of communications at the Office of Public Liaison, left the White House in December.
Her exit was an ugly one. Conflicting accounts emerged over if Manigault Newman was fired or resigned, and news reports claimed that she’d left the White House cursing and screaming and set off alarms trying to confront President Trump about her termination. The Secret Service confirmed that it had deactivated her security pass.
Thursday is not the first time Manigualt Newman has been critical of the administration. Days after her departure was announced, she told “Good Morning America” she saw plenty of things that “upset” her during her time there.
“There were a lot of things that I observed during the last year that I was very unhappy with, that I was very uncomfortable with,” she said.