White House press secretary Sarah Sanders blasted the media on Tuesday for giving ex-Trump aide Omarosa Manigault Newman airtime to discuss her new book Unhinged, despite simultaneously questioning her credibility and claims she’s made on her recent publicity tour.
Sanders claimed most Americans would prefer to ignore the wall-to-wall coverage of Manigault Newman’s new tell-all, in which the former senior White House official wrote that President Trump is in “mental decline” and targeted several of her former colleagues.
“Unfortunately, the individuals in this room continue to create a large platform for somebody they know not to have a lot of credibility [and] for someone they frankly refused to give a platform to when they worked here in the White House,” Sanders said during Tuesday’s daily briefing.
She continued, “It wasn’t until this individual started to negatively attack this president and this administration, and try to tear this entire place down, that she received the type of platform and roll-out that she’s getting.”
Sanders said she was personally “disappointed” by Manigault Newman’s “self-serving” behavior since she was fired by the White House last December. The former communications director for the Office of the Public Liaison has released three recordings since last week of conversations she had with the president, his chief of staff John Kelly, and two Trump aides during the 2016 campaign.
She has also claimed to have had contact with special counsel Robert Mueller, and told MSNBC shortly before Tuesday’s briefing that Trump knew in advance about hacked emails during the presidential race from an account belonging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
“I think, like most people that worked with her, I’m very disappointed that she would be so blatantly self-serving,” Sanders said. “She worked here for a year and didn’t have any of these things to say — in fact everything she said was quite the opposite — and I think it’s really sad what she’s doing at this point.”
But the president’s top spokeswoman said the current political climate isn’t exclusively the fault of individuals like Manigault Newman or Trump.
“I think the media has done more to divide this country, certainly more than the president has, by elevating people like the author of this book,” she said.
Sanders’ comments came hours after lawyers for the Trump campaign filed an arbitration action against Manigault Newman, claiming she violated a nondisclosure agreement she signed before joining the 2016 campaign.
