Theresa “Omarosa” Manigault, a former contestant on Donald Trump’s reality-TV show The Apprentice, was named director of African-American Outreach for the presumptive Republican nominee’s presidential campaign.
“I’m happy to take up that cause for Donald Trump,” she told MSNBC. She said her new role is “an extension” of the work she’d been doing at the National Diversity Coalition for Trump.
Recent polls have shown that Trump had 0% approval among black voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania, key states. Trump recently was invited to speak at the NAACP annual convention, but he declined.
Manigualt, however, insisted that Trump has big support in the African American community. “I’m just wondering who they called because those numbers would be flawed,” Manigualt said. “My reality is that I’m surrounded by people who to want see Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, who are African-American.”
Manigualt was a contestant on the first season of The Apprentice, where she became known as a “reality TV villain.” She later appeared in several other reality shows. According to her IMDB bio, she also taught marketing at Howard University and was taking courses towards a divinity degree.
According to a 2004 People magazine article, she began her career in politics, but was “banished from four jobs in two years” with the Clinton administration. At her last one, “she was asked to leave as quickly as possible, she was so disruptive. One woman wanted to slug her,” Cheryl Shavers, the former Under Secretary for Technology at the Commerce Department, told People.