Former Trump Aide Makes Bold Political Statement Ahead of the 2024 Election
Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former aide in Donald Trump's White House and an alum of his reality TV series The Apprentice and its spinoff The Celebrity Apprentice, has officially offered her endorsement ahead of this year's presidential election.
While speaking to Variety for a piece published on Monday, Oct. 14, Newman didn't hold back from sharing her bold opinion on the upcoming election and its leading candidates: Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and the Republican-backed ticket featuring Trump and J.D. Vance.
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When asked about cognitive changes in the former president, Manigault Newman–who previously worked with politicians like Al Gore and Bill Clinton and published a tell-all memoir about working in the Trump White House–suggested it should be obvious.
"Anyone observing Donald Trump and even taking a moment to compare from 2016 to now — what becomes apparent with what’s happening with Donald is that he has limited vocabulary. He rambles, and he tends to pull things out of nowhere," she said.
Her latest argument comes in the wake of harsh comments made by the former president about the reasons he hired her, telling Ramin Setoodeh in his new book about his reality TV series that it was an "experiment" to "rehabilitate her reputation." (Manigault Newman, now 50, was eventually fired from her position as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison in December 2018 by then-chief of staff John Kelly for misusing the White House's car service, per Politico).
"I got to Washington in 1996, so the relationships I cultivated in Washington didn’t start or stop with Donald Trump," she continued, seemingly responding to Trump's recent claims before teasing her endorsement.
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"Those relationships are strong bonds that I maintain, and so in every administration — Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, soon to be Harris, I have strong relationships in all of them. My sources, my network, and my connections allow me to have insight into the inner workings of campaigns and apparatuses and organizations that most people wouldn’t have. Do I stay in touch? It’s not about staying in touch. If you want to survive in Washington, you are only as strong as your connections."
Manigault Newman, now an author, a political commentator for Sky News and a law student, noted that while some voters may overlook the 78-year-old's behavior, his position in the election isn't "Teflon" like some want to make it seem.
"Donald Trump has been defeated before, and I think what’s grating on his nerves the most is that this [next] defeat may come at the hands of a woman of color," she said. "He reserves his most vitriolic attacks for women of color. To lose to a woman of color would be devastating to his ego."
And should Harris win, she said it would be "a significant milestone" on a "very personal level," as well as "a tremendous, seismic movement for little girls and little Black boys. This is important. This is major. I’ll be in Washington on the anchor desk, and prayerfully we’ll see history made. But to get this close is still so significant. I believe the nation will choose the leader they need at this time, and I believe that that leader is Vice President Kamala Harris."
"When she wins — if she wins — I hope she’ll usher in fresh energy," Newman added.
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