Donald Trump campaign staffer Katrina Pierson got into a heated discussion with Fox News host Ed Henry on Tuesday when discussing the facts behind the tape Omarosa Manigault-Newman released.
Newman told “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah that the reason she released the tape of Pierson was that the former spokesperson denied saying what was quoted. Newman said she wanted to set the record straight by providing the recording of it.
“Look, first of all, that is not true,” Pierson said in the interview. “There are two things that occurred last night in our discussion: You had read for me a book excerpt that I have not seen because her book had not come out yet, and you referenced me having been speaking to the president about this issue. And that is false. We have transcripts today of the tapes that Omarosa released that prove that to be true.”
She went on to repeat a talking point she’d been saying throughout the day, that Omarosa “played CBS” and that she’s on a self-promotional book tour.
Henry played a clip of Pierson’s interview on the show the previous night in which she denied that the conversation took place.
Henry explained there was some confusion about where he said “she” when he meant Newman instead of Pierson.
“That does not change the fact that you are now claiming there are two different phone calls,” Henry said.
“I’m not claiming that Ed,” Pierson said.
“You told me that several times today,” Henry replied. “Let me get to the facts. I don’t want to get to side issues. Bottom line is, there was one call with Jason Miller, one without a Jason Miller. We’ll get to Miller in a second. The one without Jason Miller on CBS, Omarosa says according to a transcript you provided to me, they have not aired yet, Omarosa says, ‘Yeah, it’s out there,’ meaning the N-word tape, ‘it is just’ — and Katrina Pierson cuts in, ‘Yeah, he said it. [Bleep], okay.’ That is a roughly what she said in the book, that you cursed as I asked you last night, and you said, he said it. He used the N-word. You denied that to me last night.”
Pierson said she did because she was refuting a claim Newman made.
“And I’ll say it again on Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie,” she said.
“Let’s not talk about Chuck Todd,” Henry said. Pierson began interrupting and claiming that the accusations on those shows were important.
“Pardon me,” Henry said while Pierson was inaudibly talking over him. “I’m not going to — pardon me! No, no, no — the tape says that you said that he said it. You told me you never said that! You were on tape.”
“This is the question,” Pierson said. “This is regards to a specific discussion — check the tape of what she said on Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie! She specifically said that I said and confirmed that Donald Trump said a derogatory term on a conference call with Jason Miller, that did not happen! That is what I’m refuting! What happened today, Ed, what happened today, is Omarosa submitted two different tapes to CBS.”
Henry said that they were getting sidetracked.
“We have to!” Pierson exclaimed.
“No, no, pardon me. It’s our show. Hang on one second,” Henry shot back.
It devolved into chaos from there.
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