President Donald Trump on Monday attacked his former senior White House advisor Omarosa Manigault Newman on Twitter shortly after she revealed a tape that she had surreptitiously recorded of the president in 2017.
"Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will," the president wrote in a post on the social media platform. "She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart."
In a follow-up post, the president wrote that Manigault Newman "would constantly miss meetings & work." He said chief of staff John Kelly complained about Manigault Newman, but that he "told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me - until she got fired!"
Manigault Newman was one of the White House's highest paid staffers, receiving an annual salary of $179,700, as much as former chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Earlier Monday, NBC's "Today" played a recording that appeared to show Trump getting caught off guard by the news of her December 2017 firing.
"Omarosa? Omarosa what's going on? I just saw on the news that you're thinking about leaving? What happened?" Trump says in the recording provided by Manigault Newman. She said it was made one day after Kelly fired her in the Situation Room.
After Manigault Newman tells the president that Kelly had fired her, Trump responds: "Nobody even told me about it."
Manigault Newman has since accused the president of having "no clue" about what is going on in the White House, saying that decisions are being made by Kelly without the president's knowledge.
"He's being puppeted and that's very dangerous for this nation," she said Monday.
Manigault Newman, whose book about her time in the White House is scheduled for release on Tuesday, has levied a barrage of attacks against the president in recent days. On Sunday, Newman said on NBC's "Meet The Press" that she had personally heard a recording of the president using the N-word.
The White House has characterized Manigault Newman as a "disgruntled" former employee. On Saturday, the president told reporters that Newman was a "lowlife."
The president repeated his "lowlife" claim Monday in a tweet defending his use of Twitter to criticize his former employee.
"While I know it's 'not presidential' to take on a lowlife like Omarosa, and while I would rather not be doing so, this is a modern day form of communication," the president wrote. "I know the Fake News Media will be working overtime to make even Wacky Omarosa look legitimate as possible. Sorry!"