Omarosa claims she taped call with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
White House’s Jewish power couple reportedly told fired aide they hadn’t known she would be sacked; critics say her recordings are a breach of ethics and security
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An ousted aide to US President Donald Trump, Omarosa Manigault Newman, has claimed that she recorded a conversation with the country’s first daughter Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, both of whom are top advisers to Trump.
Politico reported that Omarosa, a former contestant on Trump’s “Apprentice” reality show, told friends that she had taped a call she received from the Jewish power couple after her firing by Chief of Staff John Kelly late last year in which they wished her well and denied knowing that she was slated for termination.
According to Politico, the call may show that Kushner and Trump are out of the loop on personnel issues, possibly indicating waning influence in the West Wing. In February, Kushner had his security clearance downgraded from top secret to secret. He was among a number of White House staffers lacking permanent security clearance to have their status downgraded.
On Monday, Trump lashed out at Manigault Newman, who has been promoting a tell-all book and airing several secret audio recordings, saying she “got fired for the last time.”
On Twitter, Trump labeled Manigault Newman “a dog,” “wacky” and said chief of staff John Kelly had called her a “loser & nothing but problems.” He added: “I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me – until she got fired!”
Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2018
…really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me – until she got fired!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2018
Trump’s pushback came after Manigault Newman released an audio recording on NBC’s “Today” show, purportedly an excerpt of a phone conversation with Trump after she was fired from the White House. It appeared to show Trump expressing surprise, saying “nobody even told me about it.”
On Sunday, Manigault Newman told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she had 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 Kelly in the high-security Situation Room.
Critics have denounced the recordings as a serious breach of ethics and security.
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!”
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.”
AP contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.