Trump’s tweets come after Manigault Newman released another audio recording Monday. Aired on NBC’s “Today” show, it is purportedly an excerpt of a phone conversation between Trump and Manigault Newman after she was fired from the White House. It appears to show Trump expressing surprise, saying “nobody even told me about it.”
On Sunday, Manigault Newman told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she surreptitiously recorded a number of conversations in the White House for her own protection. The show aired portions of a recording of her firing by chief of staff John Kelly in the high-security Situation Room.
Critics have denounced the recordings as a serious breach of ethics and security. The voice on the recording released Monday appears to be Trump’s. The White House has not denied it, but The Associated Press has not independently verified it’s Trump. The AP has independently listened to the recording with Kelly.
Trump acknowledged Monday that the occupant of the Oval Office should perhaps not engage in a public war of words with an ex-employee, saying he knows it’s “not presidential” to take on “a lowlife like Omarosa.” But he added: “this is a modern day form of communication and I know the Fake News Media will be working overtime to make even Wacky Omarosa look legitimate as possible. Sorry!”
While the latest recording appears to show Trump was unaware of her firing, Manigault Newman said on “Today” that Trump may have instructed Kelly to do it.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Monday: “I’m not going to get into the tick-tock of who knew what when, but the president makes the decisions.”
Manigault Newman, whose book is out this week, suggested there was more to come: “There’s a lot of very corrupt things happening in the White House and I am going to blow the whistle on a lot of them.”
Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said on “Fox and Friends” Monday that Manigault Newman may have broken the law by recording private conversations at the White House.
“She’s certainly violating national security regulations, which I think have the force of law,” Giiuliani said.
In the recording with Kelly, which Manigault Newman quotes extensively in her new book, “Unhinged,” Kelly can be heard saying that he wants to talk with Manigault Newman about leaving the White House.
“It’s come to my attention over the last few months that there’s been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you,” Kelly is heard saying, citing her use of government vehicles and “money issues and other things” that he compares to offenses that could lead to a court martial in the military.
“If we make this a friendly departure … you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation and then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation,” he tells Manigault Newman, adding: “There are some serious legal issues that have been violated and you’re open to some legal action that we hope, we think, we can control.”
Manigault Newman said she viewed the conversation as a “threat” and defended her decision to covertly record it and other White House conversations.
“If I didn’t have these recordings, no one in America would believe me,” she said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded in a statement.
“The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security - and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee.”
In the book, being released Tuesday, Manigault Newman claims that tapes exist of Trump using the N-word as he filmed his “The Apprentice” reality series, on which she co-starred.
Manigault Newman wrote in the book that she had not personally heard the recording. But she told Chuck Todd on Sunday that she later was able to hear a recording of Trump during a trip to Los Angeles.
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