Lara Trump offered Omarosa $180,000 salary to rejoin campaign in new secret recording

The former reality show star is shopping a new tell-all book.

August 16, 2018, 2:15 PM

Omarosa Manigault Newman, former reality television villain and White House official, released her latest secret recording –- this time, a conversation with Lara Trump about joining the Trump campaign.

In the conversation, which Manigault Newman said was made in the days after she was fired from the White House, the president’s campaign aide and daughter-in-law offered Manigault Newman $15,000 per month to have a public role in the campaign. The tape aligns with what Manigault Newman wrote about in her new tell-all memoir, “Unhinged.”

In the book she writes that the Trump campaign contract would have required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but she refused.

In an interview with MSNBC, Manigault Newman said she saw the offer as hush money.

“Absolutely,” Manigault Newman said.

On the recording, which has not been independently verified by ABC News, the younger Trump appears to suggest campaign concerns about Manigault Newman disparaging her former employers.

"It sounds a little like, obviously, that there are some things you've got in the back pocket to pull out. Clearly, if you come on board the campaign, like, we can't have, we got to," she continues.

Manigault Newman interrupts her to respond, "Oh, God no."

“Everything, everybody positive, right?” Trump added.

Trump goes on, on the recording, to say that the money offered to Manigault Newman is public.

“All the money that we raise and that pays salaries is directly from donors, small-dollar donors for the most part," Trump said on the tape.

"So, I know you, you were making 179 at the White House," she said, referring to Manigault Newman's $179,000 annual salary. "And I think we can work something out where we keep you right along those lines."

"Specifically, let me see, I haven't even added up the numbers," Trump continued. "But we were talking about, like, 15K a month. Let me see what that adds up to. Times 12. Yeah. So that’s $180,000. Does that sound like, uh, a fair deal for you?”

The former reality star shared four excerpts from a recorded conversation with Trump's daughter-in-law on MSNBC. The network said that their producers listened to the tape in its entirety to verify the context of the conversation.

Lara Trump responded in a statement calling the latest "bombshell tape" a "fraud."

“From the beginning of my father-in-law’s campaign, Omarosa was welcomed into our family as a trusted friend and confidant. On the Women for Trump tour, including Omarosa, we formed a sisterhood bond that is unlike any I have experienced in my life. We toured together, laughed together, and worked really hard towards a common goal. We never would have imagined that one of our own was secretly recording all of our private conversations," Trump said.

"When Omarosa was fired by the White House Chief of Staff in December of 2017, my entire family was concerned for her 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. That’s why I reached out to offer her a position with the 2020 Trump Campaign before we knew anything about the gross violations of ethics and integrity during her White House tenure. Another one of Omarosa’s ‘bombshell’ tapes is a fraud. The discussions about a position with the campaign took place in numerous phone calls over the course of several weeks.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."

"I hope it’s all worth it for you, Omarosa, because some things you just can’t put a price on,” Trump added.

You have to have your own back, because otherwise you’ll look back and see 17 knives in your back.

It’s the latest incendiary audio to drop in Manigault Newman’s weeklong publicity tour for her tell-all book about life on the Trump campaign and in the West Wing, “Unhinged.”

The roll out of Manigault Newman’s book and some of her critical and unverified observations appear to have rattled the president. He called her a “crazed, crying lowlife” and a “dog” in a tweet.

On Tuesday morning, the Trump campaign filed an arbitration case against Manigault Newman in New York saying she violated her non-disclosure agreement.

In a statement, a senior Trump campaign official confirmed to ABC News that “Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. has filed an arbitration against Manigault-Newman with the American Arbitration Association in New York City, for breach of her 2016 confidentiality agreement with the Trump Campaign."

"President Trump is well known for giving people opportunities to advance in their careers and lives over the decades, but wrong is wrong, and a direct violation of an agreement must be addressed and the violator must be held accountable,” the statement said.

“Wacky Omarosa already has a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement!” the president declared in a tweet earlier this week.

The television-savvy Manigault Newman took a page straight out of Trump’s producer playbook and teased “plenty” of tapes to come.

“There are things that I am going to save to share when the time is right,” Manigault Newman said Wednesday on MSNBC.

“What does Donald Trump have to hide?” Manigault Newman said.

Her media blitz began on Sunday, when she appeared on “Meet the Press” and played a recording of a private conversation she had with Chief of Staff John Kelly in the Situation Room -- what it supposed to be the most secure area of the entire White House. Kelly was firing Manigault Newman, and she wanted to record the conversation to protect herself.

“You have to have your own back, because otherwise you’ll look back and see 17 knives in your back,” Manigault Newman said.

Some White House aides are concerned about just how many tapes Manigault Newman has – and what kinds of conversations she recorded.

“She terrified me,” a senior White House official told ABC News.