The controversy and mystery surrounding the hiring and firing of “The Apprentice” star Omarosa Manigault Newman in the Donald Trump White House has received some clarification as the former president has decided to comment on the matter.
Trump said that Omarosa met with great success on reality TV, but her personality was not a good fit for the White House, as she was habitually tardy and the other workers, in Trump’s words, “hated her.”
When asked why Trump decided to hire Omarosa in the first place, Trump said that he had done it as an “experiment” to test her trustworthiness and loyalty. Given the fact that, after she was let go from her governmental position, Omarosa released a tell-all book about her time in the Trump White House, which included insider information about the administration, it isn’t surprising that, in Trump’s own estimation, the experiment was a failure.
Trump’s revelations came during an interview with Ramin Setoodeh of Variety, conducted in promotion of his new book Apprentice in Wonderland.
Omoarosa enjoyed a three season-long run on Trump’s reality TV show before he hired her as the Director for African American Outreach for his 2016 Presidential campaign. In 2017, he elevated her to a pair of positions as a director of communications for the Public Liaison Office in the White House, and assistant to the President. Yet, when December rolled around that first year, John Kelley—then White House Chief of Staff—handed her a pink slip.
Trump revealed that he didn’t see her much while he was in the White House. The main building is but the central feature in an enormous office complex in which hundreds of people work. He thus had no direct experience with her job performance, but he was left with the distinct impression that she was not well-regarded by her fellow workers. When he hired her, he says, he didn’t expect it to work out, but he thought it would be an interesting experiment.
