Monday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” former White House staffer and “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman, who has said she had heard President Donald Trump using a racial slur about African-Americans on tape, said the former member of the production staff of Trump’s reality show who has the audio want to use it as an October surprise.
Partial transcript as follows:
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: My first reaction to it was this can’t be true, this is somebody I’ve known since 2003, he had always been kind to me, as I said repeatedly in dozens and dozens of interviews. So when I heard it, instinct was to protect him and not to dive deeper because I just dismissed it as untrue.
MATTHEWS: Well, you did eventually dive deeper, even after publication of your book, you went out and you actually heard the tape?
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: I did.
MATTHEWS: When you heard the tape, did you get a sense that the person—I know you don’t want to give away the source. that the person who has the tape, a copy of it, is planning to use it at some point?
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: Yes. In fact, I believe that they’re using it for politically motivated things. In fact, they may—
MATTHEWS: Before November?
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: Before November, an October surprise.
MATTHEWS: Are they Democrats?
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: I don’t know what their political –
MATTHEW: You don’t know. If they’re Republicans or —
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: They used to be a part of the production staff for “The Apprentice,” and they saw it—took it on themselves to actually document this so that they could expose him for the racist that he is.
MATTHEW: They have a copy you said of the tape?
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: They do, of the audio.
MATTHEWS: Had you listen to the parts you heard, how many times did you hear Mr. Trump, your former boss, how many times did you hear him use the n-word?
MANIGAULT NEWMAN: Multiple times.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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