Trump 2020 campaign staffer and presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump responded Thursday to former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman releasing a recording of a conversation the two of them had just days after Manigault Newman’s White House firing.
“Woman to woman, I shared a connection with Omarosa as a friend and a campaign sister, and I am absolutely shocked and saddened by her betrayal and violation on a deeply personal level,” Lara Trump said in a written statement.
Manigault Newman’s recording, one of several recorded conversations with Trump insiders she’s released in order to promote a new book, included Lara Trump offering her a $15,000 monthly salary to join the 2020 campaign.
Trump sounded concerned on the recording that Manigault Newman could become a critic of the President, or release damaging information about him to the press, otherwise.
“Everything, everybody positive, right?” Trump asks at one point in the recorded call.
In her statement, Trump made no mention of a hush money payoff to Manigault Newman.
Instead, she wrote that her family “was concerned” about Manigault Newman after her firing by White House chief of staff John Kelly “because we had no idea about the basis of her dismissal.”
“We still wanted her on our team because we cared so much about her personally,” Lara Trump wrote.
Read the full statement below:
INBOX: Statement by Lara Trump on Omarosa’s “Unhinged” pic.twitter.com/WlD0dDQqMp
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 16, 2018