Trump calls Omarosa a ‘dog’ as war over salacious memoir explodes
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Trump blasted Omarosa Manigault-Newman as a “crazed, crying lowlife” on Tuesday morning and went so far as to call her a "dog," rapidly escalating the already heated battle between the president and the reality TV star who made her name on his show.
“When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!” Trump tweeted.
The president’s harsh words for “Wacky” Manigault-Newman, as he referred to her on Monday, come as the former White House aide and “Apprentice” star’s book is released.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Manigault-Newman’s media blitz to promote her book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” has drawn tough criticism from the White House, as she revealed she had secretly recorded Chief of Staff John Kelly as he fired her in the Situation Room.
Over the weekend, Manigault-Newman released the recording of Kelly notifying her of her firing. Manigault-Newman said Sunday that Kelly was “threatening” her in the White House.
In the recording, Kelly seeks Manigault-Newman’s “friendly departure” from the administration without any “difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.” According to the tape, Kelly says things could get “ugly” for her, and that she would be “open to some legal action” for conduct that would merit a court martial if she were in the military.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She later released a tape of a phone call with Trump himself.
OMAROSA’S REVENGE: BOOK TRASHES ‘MOBLIKE’ TRUMP, EXPOSES FAMILY DRAMA, BASHES EX-COLLEAGUES
In her book, her firing is a key section. In it, she goes so far as to claim that Kelly and the White House lawyers present, upon notifying her of her termination, were holding her against her will in the Situation Room, suggesting she was at risk of an asthma attack because she initially couldn't get her inhaler.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I am an asthma sufferer, and I began to feel a tightness in my chest. I had to calm myself down or I could have had a full-blown asthma attack,” Manigault-Newman writes in the prologue. “I asked if I could go get my purse where I had stashed my inhaler, and they wouldn’t let me leave the room. I asked why I was not allowed to leave, and they said this is how Kelly had set up the meeting.”
Manigault-Newman’s assistant was ultimately allowed to “go get [her] purse” with the inhaler.
Manigault-Newman also writes in the book that she believed her firing was related to her knowledge of a tape made in the early 2000s, in which Trump supposedly uses “the N-word.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Trump strongly disputes the claims of such a tape.
White House officials, meanwhile, blasted her for making recordings of Trump and Kelly.
“The thought of doing something like that to a fellow employee, not to mention the leader of the free world, is completely disgraceful,” Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told "Fox & Friends."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}TRUMP BLASTS ‘WACKY OMAROSA’ AFTER LEAKED TAPE: ‘VICIOUS BUT NOT SMART’
And Trump’s personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said Monday that Manigault-Newman violated national security rules by taping White House officials inside the West Wing without their consent—especially in the highly secure Situation Room.
And on Monday, Trump tweeted that, “People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Throughout the book, though, Manigault-Newman dishes out her own insults, blasting Trump as “moblike” and likening him to a “cult leader.” She slams Vice President Pence as a “swamp creature,” and even calls Trump “mentally and physically impaired.”
In another skirmish, Trump tweeted Monday that Manigault-Newman signed a non-disclosure agreement upon her exit from the White House. But the former White House aide writes in her book that she “refused” to sign an NDA.