Manigault Newman, who is black, writes in the explosive memoir that Trump frequently used the n-word while he was the host of the “Celebrity Apprentice,” and that there are tapes to prove it.
While she said she never heard Trump used the word herself, Manigault Newman said that by the time she was fired last December, she had came to view Trump as a “racist.”
“It had finally sunk in that the person I’d thought I’d known so well for so long was actually a racist,” she wrote, according to The New York Times and The Guardian, who obtained early copies of the memoir titled “Unhinged.”
“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 continued.
The White House’s aggressive response to the book is intended to impugn Manigault Newman’s credibility. But it also directed even more attention to the book, which is expected to cause a political headache for the Trump administration when it is released next week.
Trump and his team followed a similar model in pushing back against Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury,” which painted a dysfunctional picture of the the president’s early days in power.
Manigault Newman has a long history with Trump, starting when she was a contestant on the first season of his reality show “The Apprentice.” She was tapped to work for Trump’s presidential campaign and was later hired to work in the White House’s public engagement office.
White House chief of staff John Kelly fired Manigault Newman last December after she was accused of abusing her office for personal purposes. She was reportedly furious at her dismissal, something Trump allies have cited to question whether her claims about the president are credible.