Former Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman says the president isn’t “stable” enough to have access to the nuclear codes, adding that his “bizarre” antics are just part of what she calls the “Trump reality show.”
Manigualt-Newman, who served as the administration’s communications director for the Office of Public Liaison before her ouster last year, appeared this week on MSNBC’s “Hardball” to discuss President Donald Trump‘s repeated attacks on late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Omarosa Manigault-Newman previously served as director of African-American outreach for Donald Trump’s campaign before joining his administration in 2017. (MSNBC / video screenshot)
“What is this?” host Chris Matthews asked.
“He’s obsessed with McCain because he’ll never be the hero McCain is,” Manigault-Newman replied. “What we are watching is the third season of the Trump reality TV show, and what happens in the third season is you turn the hero into the heel and you have a plot twist — and he keeps repeating these themes over and over again.”
The former “Celebrity Apprentice” star described Trump’s behavior as “bizarre,” and said it only stands to get worse because Trump, 72, is too busy trying to be the “best reality star” rather than the best president for the U.S.
In recent weeks, the president has made repeated attacks against McCain, 82, who died in August after a year-long battle with brain cancer. Trump railed against the late senator and Vietnam War vet for voting against the Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare and falsely accused him of “spreading the fake and totally discredited” Steele dossier ahead of the 2016 election. The document might be discredited among Trump supporters, but the opposition research allegations compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele have not been disproved, and McCain did not pass on his copy before Nov. 8, 2016.
Trump drew rebukes from both sides of the political aisle this week when he groaned that no one had thanked him for giving McCain “the funeral he asked for.”
“I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” the president said during a speech at a tank facility in Ohio on Wednesday. “I don’t care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That’s OK. We sent him on the way, but I wasn’t a fan of John McCain.”
With all this considered, Manigault-Newman argued that Trump likely shouldn’t be the one with his finger on the button.
“You know what the problem is? It shows he’s not stable and he really should not have access to the nuclear codes if a tweet can trigger him or even the thought of someone deceased can send him off the rails the way he is,” she argued.
Watch more in the clip below.
