Trump calls ex-staffer Manigault 'a dog' and 'a low life'
August 15, 2018
The public feud between US President Donald Trump and former staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman escalated on Tuesday, as Trump's presidential campaign sought legal action against her and the president disparaged her on twitter.
Manigault was fired in December 2017 from her job as White House coordinator for African-American community outreach. The fallout surrounding her firing appears to have prompted her to write her new book, which offered harsh details about Trump and his family.
Read more: After Trump 'betrayal', ex-White House staffer Omarosa Manigault-Newman touts warts and all book
The president's re-election campaign team, which is already preparing his 2020 bid, is set to file an arbitration case against Manigault for breaching a 2016 non-disclosure agreement during the press appearances to promote her book, sources told the Associated Press (AP).
In the meantime, Trump continued telling his side of the story on Twitter and leveled caustic insults towards Manigault. "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 (John) Kelly for quickly firing that dog!" Trump wrote on Twitter, praising his chief of staff.
'I will not be silenced'
Manigault responded to the insulting tweet during an interview with US broadcaster MSNBC, saying that "if he would say that publicly, what else would he say about me privately?"
"He has absolutely no respect for women, for African-Americans," she added.
The ex-White House staffer told MSNBC she did not believe she had violated her 2016 non-disclosure agreement and declined to answer several questions about her experiences in Trump's administration, due to the agreement.
But she was defiant in the face of possible legal action against her. "I will not be silenced. I will not be intimidated," Manigault told AP. "I'm not going to be bullied by Donald Trump," she asserted.
She continued to unleash scathing criticism of Trump on Tuesday, suggesting that he was in mental decline, unfit for president, and was intentionally sowing racial division.
"He wants to pit his base against successful African-Americans," Manigault said. "He uses his rallies to really encourage people to bring down African-Americans. That is truly evidence that this man is not trying to unite us. But he is specifically trying to divide us," she added.
Read more: Opinion: Playing Trump at his own game
Sanders: 'nothing to do with race'
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted Tuesday that the president's insults towards Manigault were not racially motivated.
"This has absolutely nothing to do with race and everything to do with the president calling out someone's integrity."
But when asked directly about Manigault's claim that the president's allegedly used the N-word, a racist term to refer to African Americans, Sanders said she could not guarantee that there was no tape recording of him using it.
"I can't guarantee anything, but I can tell you that the president addressed this question directly" on Twitter, Sanders said. "I can tell you that I've never heard it," she added.
jcg (AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)