Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the former White House staffer and “Celebrity Big Brother” contestant who made headlines with her criticism of President Donald Trump earlier this month, is now walking back her comments.
In an interview on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” airing on Wednesday night, Manigault-Newman was asked about her assertion that the country is “not going to be OK” with her former “Apprentice” boss in the White House.
“That was part of a bigger discussion,” she said, referencing the conversation with fellow houseguest Ross Mathews. “We were talking about immigration and round-ups.”
In the tearful conversation, which aired on the CBS reality show and earned a snarky rebuke from a White House spokesperson, Manigault-Newman also said she “was haunted by [the president’s] tweets every single day.”
The former White House communications aide now says that the conversation was exclusively about the immigration debate.
“It’s a very difficult and very complicated subject,” she said. “I don’t believe it can be resolved so simply, and that was part of the discussion … We have an opportunity to make it okay. I don’t want 15 seconds on a reality show to encapsulate such a serious topic.”
When pressed to answer the “is everything going to be OK?” question directly, Manigault-Newman hedged: “We’ll have to wait and see.”
TONIGHT: @Omarosa tells Stephen what she meant by "we're not going to be okay" when she confided in her @CBSBigBrother housemate @helloross. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/LXqZQe9l2P
— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) March 1, 2018