White House on defense as Omarosa releases more recordings

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White House on defense as Omarosa releases more recordings

The 'Special Report' All-Star panel weighs in on the feud between President Trump and White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," August 14, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATY TUR, MSNBC: Have you been interviewed by the special counsel?

OMAROSA MANIGAULT NEWMAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE AIDE: I have.

TUR: And what sort of questions where they asking?

NEWMAN: That's the extent I can go in discussing that as well --

TUR: Did Donald Trump know about those emails before they came out?

NEWMAN: Absolutely.

TUR: He knew about them?

NEWMAN: Yes.

TUR: He know what was coming out before WikiLeaks released them.

NEWMAN: Yes.

TUR: You are saying that Donald Trump had a backchannel.

(LAUGHTER)

NEWMAN: I didn't say that. You did. But I will say that I am going to expose the corruption that went on in the campaign and in the White House. I'm going to continue to blow the whistle and all of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Omarosa making the rounds, pitching a new book, and getting a lot of attention for what she is saying. The president taking note as well, as we noted. "When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break," he tweeted this morning, "and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn't work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!" That tweet got a lot of attention all over the place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC: How does Sarah Huckabee Sanders take to the White House podium and defend this man. How does Kellyanne Conway stay silent today and not go out and at least break with the president and his calling a woman a dog? How do the senior women in the cabinet, how do the women who get a paycheck from the American taxpayers stay silent on a day like today?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: People trying to get away with saying that Donald Trump is terrible to women who work for him and that he's a sexist misogynist, why would I be standing here in front of the White House working if I didn't think this man was doing great for all Americans, and by the way, if I felt he wasn't respectful toward women. He's an excellent boss to women.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BAIER: She went on to say she wouldn't have obviously used those particular words. Let's bring in our panel: Steve Hilton is a former advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron and host of "The Next Revolution" here on Fox News Channel; Karen Tumulty, opinion writer for The Washington Post, and Guy Benson, political editor at Townhall.com. Karen, a lot people say you're giving this too much oxygen, but it is the oxygen that the president is providing that is driving a lot of coverage, is it not?

KAREN TUMULTY, THE WASHINGTON POST: Absolutely. I think anybody who has watched any of Omarosa's interviews, including her disastrous one yesterday with Savannah Guthrie, doesn't walk away from those interviews thinking I've got to go out and read this book. It really is the president, with his tweets, with his engagement, who I think it's putting in a lot of fuel on this fire.

BAIER: Guy, what do you think of all this?

GUY BENSON, TOWNHALL.COM: Oh, my gosh. When the White House is out there and their primary defenses the president calls many different people dogs, it's maybe not the best situation for the country. It does happen to be true, at least on some level. There is a reporter from "Business Insider" who went through compiled on Twitter a list of people the president has referred to as dogs, which included many white men, like Mitt Romney and Rahm Emanuel and David Gregory and Erick Erickson, the list goes on and on.

But here we are. The president I think has a compulsion to fight back. It's part of the reason a lot of his supporters love him. But you have to question occasionally the wisdom of the ferocity of the pushback given the context here where he is very clearly punching down in a big way against someone who I think has limited credibility, to put it kindly.

BAIER: Steve?

STEVE HILTON, FOX NEWS: I agree with Karen and Guy. I doubt a couple of things. You said that she's getting a lot of attention, Bret. That's exactly right. She's getting the attention but I don't think she's going to have any impact. I think this will turn out to be pretty inconsequential in terms of the overall scheme of things.

There's just one thing I would like to pick up on because a lot of people in discussing this have made the point why did the president hire this person in the first place? It's a mistake to bring people like this into government. You shouldn't have people like that with no government experience. I think that is the wrong lesson to learn. I think it's often very useful to have outsiders, people without government experience and so on brought into government to shake things up. You don't just want a bunch of bland bureaucrats. However, they have to have some level of integrity, and Omarosa clearly doesn't.

BAIER: Karen, what about this Peter Strzok story, as the president continues to tweet about that. Peter Strzok fired. A lot of back-and- forth about how that has all played out and how really he led the way in these investigations, the Trump probe as well. But the president saying if I had a real attorney general, this would not be going forward.

TUMULTY: Again, he cannot get over the fact that Jeff Sessions recused himself from all of this at the outset of the administration. And he continues to sort of dig and dig and dig at his own attorney general. Of course, if he didn't want Jeff Sessions there, there's a way to get rid of him. He's the president.

And I think it also goes to the question of why people don't feel loyal to Donald Trump. In many respects, loyalty starts at the top. And so we have seen people, once they are out of his orbit, they turn on him. And this is something you often see in Washington.

BAIER: Guy, the outrage meter is always at 11 here in Washington. It really seems like every day is another thing that heads explode about. Whether they should or shouldn't we'll leave to the viewers at home. But Guy, what do you think of the political impact here potentially as we head towards midterms on both of these stories?

BENSON: I tend to agree with Steve that on Omarosa, this is a passing fascination. She is wall-to-wall on another network right now talking to anyone who will listen about all of these allegations. The one we played at the beginning of the clip, if true, would be huge, that the president or then candidate Trump had advanced knowledge of WikiLeaks, possession of DNC emails. But there's not shred of evidence to that effect thus far. And another network in fact got in some trouble for making that claimant and had to walk it back a number of months ago if I recall correctly. So Omarosa I think probably a passing phase in our national discussion.

The Peter Strzok Russia broader issue I think is here to stay until Mueller wraps things up because of -- it's an all-encompassing topic. Both parties have dug in their heels on this issue at this point. And the one thing I will say in the moment, Bret, is that I am fascinated by the sort of cultural martyrdom that has surrounded Peter Strzok. He is sort of being portrayed as a victim of President Trump. That is very odd to me given the black-and-white text messages, the evidence that we have seen for which he was fired.

BAIER: And all that the I.G. said about him. Now a GoFundMe page. You never know what this country is going to do next.

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