Why Omarosa Is Calling Herself "Complicit" — And Is Now Sorry For it

While continuing to allege that President Donald Trump is a racist, former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman has now said she was "complicit" in what she called the White House's "deception." In an interview Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Newman claimed the White House is actively deceiving Americans by hiding how "mentally declined" President Trump really is.

"I was complicit with this White House deceiving this nation," Newman told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd. "They continue to deceive this nation with how mentally declined [Trump] is, how difficult it is for him to process complex information, how he is not engaged in some of the most important decisions that impacts our country."

Newman went on to say that she now regrets having been complicit in that so-called deception, especially when it came to her previous efforts to defend the president from accusations of racism. "After [Charlottesville] he gets up and he says that there are good people on both sides when he should have been denouncing what we saw as clearly racist nazis going against the grain of this country," she said. "And it's just really difficult to see that I was so much a part of this and I accept and admit that I was."

When asked about her initial enthusiastic support and defense of Trump, Newman told Todd she'd "had a blind spot" when it came to him because she "wanted to see the best in him." The former White House aide also said it was hard to see the truth of what was happening when it was happening. "Being used by Donald Trump for so long, I was like the frog in the hot water," she said. "You don't know that you're in that situation until it just keeps bubbling and bubbling." Hindsight, she said, is 20-20.

She also claimed that her relationship with Trump had evolved over the years as she learned more and more about him. "What I know now, I didn't have the benefit of in 2003 or 2004 or 2010," Newman said.

Omarosa also provided Meet the Press with an audio tape she said she secretly recorded of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly discussing her termination in the situation room. "I think it's important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure, we can all be, you know you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation," Kelly can be heard to say on the recording. "And then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future, relative to your reputation."

Newman told Todd she believes Kelly's remarks were "very obviously a threat."

In her new memoir, Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House, Newman alleged that the president is a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. But Trump has pushed back on Newman's accusations, telling reporters Saturday that "she's a lowlife." The White House also denied Newman's claims and characterized her as a "disgruntled former White House employee... trying to profit off of these false attacks" in a statement put out Friday.