Former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault-Newman says in her new book that President Trump repeatedly used a racial slur during tapings of his show “The Apprentice” — and that it was documented on tape.
The reality television star and former White House aide who was fired from her position last year writes in “Unhinged” that sources told her of the existence of a tape of Trump using a racial slur during outtakes for NBC’s reality show, according to a report by The Guardian. The New York Times later confirmed the allegation appears in the book.
Manigault-Newman says that she never heard Trump use the word herself, and her credibility is likely to be called into question by those who think she is seeking to sell a salacious memoir.
In February, after she voiced criticism on “Celebrity Big Brother” of Trump based on her experience at the White House, a spokesman for the president said she had “limited” contact with Trunp.
“Omarosa was fired three times on ‘The Apprentice,’ and this was the fourth time we let her go,” White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in February. “She had limited contact with the president while here. She has no contact now.”
{mosads}The White House did not immediately return a request for comment to The Hill.
In her book, Manigault-Newman writes that when she was fired, she felt a “growing realization that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot and a misogynist.”
“My certainty about the N-word tape and his frequent uses of that word were the top of a high mountain of truly appalling things I’d experienced with him, during the last two years in particular,” she wrote.
“It had finally sunk in that the person I’d thought I’d known so well for so long was actually a racist,” Manigault-Newman continued, according to The Guardian. “Using the N-word was not just the way he talks but, more disturbing, it was how he thought of me and African Americans as a whole.”
She wrote that she was fired because White House chief of staff John Kelly knew she was close to getting the audio of Trump saying the racial slur.
In her book, she also alleges that there was an emergency meeting during the 2016 campaign to respond to the tape’s release. The tape has yet to be released, however.
Manigault-Newman served as the director of communications for the White House’s Office of Public Liaison.
Rumors of such a tape from Trump’s years on “The Apprentice” have circulated before, particularly following the 2016 release of his “Access Hollywood” hot mic recording. However, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns the rights to “The Apprentice,” and show creator Mark Burnett have declined to release the outtakes, citing “various contractual and legal requirements.”
Manigault-Newman also alleged that while she never heard the president use the n-word, she did hear him use racial slurs to refer to George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. George Conway, who is half Filipino, sometimes publicly criticizes the president’s policies.
“Would you look at this George Conway article?” Manigault Newman claims the president said, according to The Guardian. “F—ing FLIP! Disloyal! F—ing Goo-goo.”
Conway dismissed the claim as “absurd” in a Friday morning tweet:
Manigault-Newman has emerged as a vehement Trump critic since leaving the White House, and claims in “Unhinged,” which hits shelves on Tuesday, that he has undergone a “mental decline” since his election.
“Donald rambled. He spoke gibberish. He contradicted himself from one sentence to the next,” she says.
—Updated at 10:56 a.m.