The White House pushes back at Omarosa's prophecy of Trumpean doom by noting Trump fired her on The Apprentice
Say what you want, but the reality TV late-night heart-to-heart is a more dramatic vehicle to air White House laundry than even the juiciest tell-all book — and it seems especially appropriate for a president who reinvented himself as a reality TV star. On Thursday, Celebrity Big Brother teased its season premiere with a clip of former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman discussing her time in President Trump's administration. As she explained it to fellow contestant Ross Mathews, it sounds pretty dark.
"I was haunted by tweets every single day — like, what is he going to tweet next?” Omarosa said. She described her decision to join Trump in the White House as an act of civic duty, and said she doesn't know if anyone can restrain Trump's Twitter fingers or other impulses. "It's not my circus, not my monkeys — you know, I'd like to say not my problem, but I can't say that because, like, it's bad," Omarosa said. Mathews asked if we should be worried, and a tearful Omarosa nodded. "It's going to not be okay," she said. "It's not. It's so bad."
So how did the White House respond to this prophecy of doom from a former member of the president's staff? With a reality TV dis. In Thursday's White House press briefing, Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said the White House doesn't take Omarosa's criticism very seriously. "Omarosa was fired three times on The Apprentice and this was the fourth time we let her go," he said.
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Shah, a longtime GOP operative who was never affiliated with The Apprentice, did not explain why Trump decided to hire a woman to work in the White House who he had already fired three times on reality TV.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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