Latest Omarosa Tape Shows Trump ‘Unfit’ for Office, Frederica Wilson Says
On recording, president cracks wise about Niger operation that left four U.S. troops dead
Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, one of the Trump White House’s political sparring partners, says a new recording of the president released by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman shows he is “unfit” for the Oval Office.
Newman released her latest recording, made while she was still on Trump’s West Wing staff, Monday on ABC’s “The View.” On the recording, Trump can be heard cracking a joke about how becoming a terrorist is the “only thing” someone in Niger can do to earn a living. He is also heard dropping a quip about a U.S. military operation that left four U.S. and four Nigerian soldiers dead.
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“So, it’s a rough business. I wouldn’t, I don’t think I’d want to be a terrorist right now,” the president says on the audio file as what Newman says are “junior staffers” laugh. “It’s not a good life, but it’s, uh, the only thing that — what else is there?
“But, um, but that is — you know people don’t say that the reason they’re there is because we forced them out and it’s not nearly as intense, but it’s pretty intense, you see that happening,” the commander in chief added.
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Among the four U.S. fighters killed was Army Sgt. La David Johnson, a Miami Gardens native who was one of Wilson’s constituents. Trump and Wilson clashed earlier this year over a remark the president allegedly made on the phone with Johnson’s wife about him knowing the dangers of the job when he signed up.
In a statement, Wilson called Trump’s comments on the Newman recording “appalling.”
“The recording is yet another example of how unfit Mr. Trump is to serve as our nation’s commander-in-chief and how he cannot resist any opportunity to massage his insatiable ego by taking false credit,” she said. “Unlike the four men who lost their lives much too soon, hero is a word that will never be used to describe him.”
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“Sgt. Johnson’s family is still waiting for answers about how La David got separated from his unit during the deadly ambush in Niger,” Wilson added. “I am more determined than ever to push for an investigation into what happened and will not stop until all of our questions have been answered.”
The Florida congresswoman feuded with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly last year over the Niger operation and the phone call between Trump and Johnson’s wife following his death there.
Kelly also implied that Wilson in 2015 had wrongly bragged about her role in securing funding for a new FBI building in front of family members of fallen FBI agents for whom the field office was named.
“And a congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that, and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building,” Kelly said last October, referring to Wilson. “And she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it.”