>> omarosa manigault's communications director for the white house office of public liaison. we talked about her role in the trump administration and her time in the clinton white house. this is half an hour. >> omarosa manigault, let me begin with your name. what is the etymology? omarosa: my name is omarosa manigault, it means my beautiful child desired. y father named me. >> you grew up in ohio. one of four. omarosa: the youngest. two boys, two girls. y father was killed when i was seven. up until seven, i was in a two parent home and of course that was shattered because of senseless violence. y father was killed by a man

who committed the most horrible act you could, in terms of taking a father from his four children and wife. very difficult time for my family. host: what do you remember about him? omarosa: he was funny. he had a certain swagger. he could be very intensely serious and focused. host: and your mother? marosa: very gracious, kind, the life of the party. she has a light about her. and a very devout christian. she was on advocate for education. she was actually going to school, university, for early childhood education to be a teacher when my father died. host: let me ask about a couple of your titles -- omarosa: titles.

i'm an ordained baptist inister. i was an assistant pass door, i'm a military chaplain, i'm a professoring or was until january 20. the most important thing is a christian, because christ is the head of my life. host: how do you train for that? what is the schooling involved? omarosa: being a pastor, minister, which one of the itles? host: pick any one of them. omarosa: so, you have to go to seminary. i went to two. i started at united theological seminary. i transferred to another one for their doctorate of ministry program and then i was licensed at a baptist church, where i was rdained.

host: so what is the secret for a successful sermon? how do you prepare for that? omarosa: it's important that you pray and you meditate and listen to what god is trying to say to you and what message he wants you to convey. you have to remove yourself from the process. you are sharing the word. my process starts with prayer. and then you have to be driven by the word. one of my professors taught short sermons and how to exegete the text so you do not yourself into it. that's a process that has carried me since i accepted my call. host: what does your faith mean to you? omarosa: my faith is my foundation, my compass, it guides everything i do in my life, through good times and bad

times. it is centered on the word of god and what god has asked us to o, being obedient to his instruction that is outlined in the word. host: through the loss of your father, another tragedy, how do you go through those moments? omarosa: i would be nothing without god, i mean, i don't know many people who could survive the type of tragedies i have survived and the conditions i grew up in. the loss. the difficulties. and still have a sense of themselves and still have their mind. i've only been able to do that because of my faith in christ and belief in his word and what he said, which is that he knows the plans for me, to prosper and not to harm me. even as i go through these

storms, i recognize i have to have joy, no matter what i'm going through. that comes from my faith. host: what was your most difficult storm? omarosa: oh my gosh, there were probably seven mini storms and a major storm. it was like a storm that spurs six or seven tornadoes. there were so many chapters in my life. looking back at just the last two years of my life. losing my sister. we were a year apart. losing my fiancé, who had a heart attack and before that, my brother was shot and killed in the same town my father was murdered in. even though it has been a difficult season, i have found i'm equipped for everything life throws my way. god has prepared me and i've

learned to work through the difficult times and to don to what i know, that joy comes in the morning. host: let me ask about another title, public liaison in the office of communication. what does that mean? omarosa: my title director of communications and o.p.l. as communications director it's important we are communicating the vision the president has for the community we serve, for the constituents that we serve, and that that message is clear, concise, and thorough and that is what my job is. host: part of that involves bringing in black college presidents. you went to howard university. omarosa: i started in ohio, where i played volleyball. i was part of the rotc there and part of black radio, wchu, i started at central state and then went to howard for my

masters and doctoral studies. host: what position in volleyball? omarosa: i was a setter. quarterback. [laughter] i can't imagine, even though i am tall, i have incredible jumping ability, the setter really sets the pace of the game and the strategy for how to win. that is why i love to that position. host: let me go back to the college presidents meeting with the president, some graffiti was written. one of them, welcome to the trump plantation, the overseer. what was your reaction? omarosa: i was a rambunctious student. i was part of protest, i was part of the agitations that brought about the change we wanted. i think those protests the students are meeting is important.

it is the only way to affect hange. i was not surprised. i know the students well. i'm a graduate and i taught there, served on the advisory board for mba programs. if students are unhappy with the leadership, you will hear from them in a form of protest. in this case, they used graffiti. other times they will march. walkouts. that is the culture of howard niversity. we only raise leaders. we do not raise followers. host: what is your message to the african-american community? what's the president's message? omarosa: in what regard? the african-american community is not a monolith. we have to be careful of saying there is a single message for african-americans. tell me specifically. what area are you referring to?

host: in terms of outreach. when you are meeting with students, college leaders, business leaders, people who want to find out what the president means to them, race ssues, jobs. omarosa: my job is to communicate the vision of the president. he would like to see for those who have been promised things from the previous administration, who were sold hope and change and were unemployed after four years, they still were unable to fill their gas tanks or their prescriptions. what the president wants to see is that these folks have the opportunity to live the american dream. the african-american community is no different than all americans who want to see their children in safe schools , in environments where they can learn who want to see their families healthy and thriing, who want to see their families back to work, who want to see america put first.

the community wants to make sure there is somebody in the oval office who is fighting for them and who is not taking them for granted. host: is your hometown emblematic of the challenges along that corridor? omarosa: as you know, the president was at youngstown frequently, often he got to know where i grew inup. he got to know about the effect of the steel mills closing down and we have not recovered from that. about the promises that were made in about the potential youngstown still offers. really good people in youngstown who want a chance to get back to work, to make their way in the world. they have to be given a hance. when you look at youngstown, there's a great deal of potential. and not been given the opportunity to get back to work and so i'm happy the president has been working with

corporations to bring those jobs back to this country, bring jobs back to places like youngstown so people can earn a good living and provide for their amilies. host: what do you remember about your community growing up in the 1970's and 1980's? omarosa: the community was thriving. i remember the gm plant was 20 minutes from my house. so many people were excited to work there. i remember a certain pride that came with being from the buckeye state, from being from oungstown. you could truly use your hands and your heart and work hard and ake something of yourself. i remember the community and how important family and friends were. and i hope that once the community recovers in terms of economics, the spirit can recover as well.

host: some other titles, ms. buckeye, ms. youngstown. ms. district of columbia. omarosa: you got me. i'm a former beauty queen. i confess. that's what we do. in highway, the boys play football, the girls throw batons -- twirl batons, get into beauty pageants. very wholesome upbrings. i had a teacher, a librarian. but she also taught speech. i was tomboyish. she thought, you're a great athlete, rough around the edges. she told me about the pageant, the ms. buckeye pageant, the first pageant i entered. thank god i did not win. i'm so competitive, i wanted to figure out, how do you win?

being first runner-up was not nough. so i entered the next year and i won. i was the first african-american woman to be ms. youngstown and represent youngstown at the miss highway and miss america pageant. pageants were great for me. taught me a lot of incredible lessons. people will judge you by how you look and how you walk and how you talk. to be sharp on your feet that fitness was important. and to be congenial. i learned a lot about those skills while i was competing in he pageants. host: when did you first meet donald trump? omarosa: september, i believe the 13th, 2003. host: walk us through what happened. omarosa: like a quiz. [laughter] i remember it was after 9/11. i booked my train ticket to come

up from washington, d.c. i was hiing in washington. i did not know what to expect. knew i had been selected to appear on what they described as the most incredible job interview a chance to run one of donnell trump's companies, to be c.e.o. or boss or project manager or something. so i was selected. i was excited. i remember getting off the train and the car taking us to trump tower. if you have been to trump tower, you stand in front of it and you look at this skyscraper and realize this is the tower trump built. this is where we would live, work, sleep, play, for the next couple of months. we walked into the boardroom, however, i knew he

was a big personality but until donald trump walks into the room, you really don't get the full impact of his presence. he walked into the room people -- into the room, hello, folks. you're like, it's donald trump. host: another title you had from "people" magazine, the most hated reality television celebrity. how does all of that -- omarosa: was that the title? i thought i was one of the most notorious tv villains? are you mixing up my titles? host: you remember better. omarosa: i won a reality tv award, reality villain. best catfight. most dramatic moment. i was in a field driven by ratings. you know what drives ratings? conflict. [laughter] so, absolutely. i will own up to all of them.

atings meant everything. in that genre. once i got to the top, i wanted to stay until every show i did, i was not only the queen of the boardroom, i wasn't just the greatest villain, but i dominated the screen. i understood what drove that business and what drives that business is ratings. no one wants to tune into a boring television show. host: do you apply that to this job? omarosa: no, this is different. on that show, there were 16 contestants trying to win a job with donald trump. you were competing. there were scenarios that were not realistic. took over sotheby's auction

house, had to come up with a concert for jessica simpson. we ran a lemonade stand in new york city. i'm certainly not selling lemonade in the white house. we've come a long way. in the last 14 years from that. but i'm very grateful for that opportunity to have experienced show business in a way and to learn the business through the eyes of donald trump. host: this is not your first time in the white house. omarosa: i started in gore's staff, scheduling. then i was promoted, i got to work it was incredible watching the political process. at that time, i was so young. , with thistle fresh new experience. but thank god, that i had this

previous appointments because it prepared me for the position that i am in now, and it helped me understand how no one thing is greater than the incredible agenda that we have, and to stay focused on that. sometimes back then, i got caught up on one issue inking him a that was it. this was a big one. now i understand, that sometimes you go from crisis to crisis, and you deal with policy to policy. you dustet up, yourself off and you get back in the race and keep fighting. host: coming back in a different capacity, how different are things from the clinton-gore pence to the trump- white house? omarosa: it is night and day. before we were going through impeachment. there was travel-gate, and there was watergate. [laughter]

it was like every week at the clinton white house there was nothing -- there was something-gate. it was a very tense environment. we had a special prosecutor, a guy named ken starr. he was the bogeyman back then. [laughter] i spent more time in that white house responding to requests than doing anything else. i remember going through every document trying to find that thing that ken starr wanted that week. now i get to do my job and help change the course of this country's direction. so many americans throughout the campaign told us that we were the right direction and i am so proud to be able to put this country back on track. host: when did you decide you

are going to support donald trump? initially, you had tweeted that hillary clinton was going to run in omarosa: there is no secret i 2016. was a democrat. diehard democrat. i was an african-american female, from a working-class neighborhood. my family was involved with labor. that is what you do, you are part of the democratic party. but, as i continue to kind of go through my life and accomplished so many different things, and realized that some of the promises that the democrats were making, especially to my committee, as ashley to youngstown, -- look at youngstown. you don't even have to look at the entire country the promises , the party kept making to that community, the more they made promises, the more you see the country, the county and the city i grew up in the itinerary. -- i grew up in deteriorated. they make more promises and then

the plant was shut down. the steel mill was shut down. you looked for the leadership and it just was not there. i held out hope, even barack obama, he had an incredible campaign. hope was truly in the air. expectations were high. but i cannot tell you that youngstown was better off years later than it was before he took office. in fact, i can tell you that they are worse off. so, when hillary decided to run again, i thought, i had a ready worked with them, i thought this , was a no-brainer. they had difficulties with people who decided to support barack obama over hillary the first time, and they never forgot. and i was one of those people chose to support barack obama over hillary clinton. [laughter]

declared, iore even had hoped that i could make an impact with her campaign, but the truth of the matter is that i was in a really weird space in because ofpolitics choices that i made to go against the clinton camp, support the obamas. the obama's did not want any of so i was like a woman without a country. so i started to vote about my issues, vote independently, trying to see the party rebound still. but i was so happy when donald trump declared that he was going to run. i was so incredibly happy, just knowing what he has accomplished, to know that -- to know what he would be able to bring to the white house. declared, andt he you can probably look at any of these interviews, you saw how very, very passionate i was

number that he was the right choice for america. host: so at one point in the general election did you know that he was going to win? -- >> when he was going through a primary, and there were 17 candidate i believe? i knew that he would not each one of them off. when we got to the general, the pollsters were telling us he was going to lose by a landslide. [laughter] that was not what we were feeling on the campaign trail. a woman's tour and we went county by county and what i felt out there was nothing corresponding to what the data was saying. not even close to what the data was saying. the data was saying he was down by 17. the people were saying he is our choice.

the data was saying that he is not connected to women, yet we were filling up auditoriums must idioms, people following our buses with signs and honking. they were saying, he would never get the nomination. he got it. he would never win, and he did. because -- what the pollsters were saying and the pundits, just did not match with what america was saying. i did not have to look at the data, or what people were saying, i saw firsthand. i opened up a rally for donald trump in ohio. it was amazing walking up there, i and addressing my fellow buckeyes. the energy in that room alone was enough for me to feel and to know, that same spirit was in the room.

outside,ks that stood for eight or nine hours, waiting to see donald j trump. host: you have something that is a rare ticket, walk-in privileges to the president of the united states. what does that mean? omarosa: that is part of my job. i don't know why everybody focuses on that. [laughter] if you do not talk with the president, how are you supposed to communicate his views, his vision, his perspective? that comes with being a director of communications for this president. it is also dictated by him. he allows people to have access to him because he is so transparent, he has nothing to hide. in fact, he talks directly to people, utilizing all forms of media including twitter. and he is accessible. that is why americans like this president and that is why they

support him. host: is he different privately? omarosa: i wish people could see more of his wit and humor. you know, when he gets going, telling a joke, it is pretty incredible. i've had quite a few laughs with him during the campaign trail. we would get going about something. i would love to see the country get a glimpse of that. now that he is here, he is so incredibly focused. cused onhe is laser fo delivering the promises which he made to the american people, so i see a different side of him. even though i've known him 14 years, a different side i had not seen before. it gives me confidence that we are going to do what he said we

were going to do. we are going to win. and i love it. host: if we were to sit here one year from now, how would you measure your success? omarosa: well, my success is directly tied to the president delivering on what we said we were going to do. i would like to look at the projects i've worked on already, day 40, an opportunity to work with a team to get an executive order committing to supporting, funding, and advancing historically black colleges and universities. i've had an opportunity to travel to haiti. as a part of a delegation. he made a commitment to haiti that he was going to be a champion for them. already on the ground, the president of haiti, we made a commitment to farmers, the military, and just now i came from the listening session going

on downstairs. everything single that he has said he is going to do, he has done. i have a list, everything he's going to do, i have a list. we are keeping our word. one year from now, that long list of commitments that we made making sure they are actually , helping americans and that it is actually allowing americans to be safe, allowing americans to be first, and making america great again. host: and yet, as you well know, there is resistance in this country. we are divided nation. you were at tysons corner a few days ago buying address and -- buying a dress and you faced some angry voters. what is it like for you when you find these americans who dislike the president? omarosa: mental illness is real. [laughter]

ithink the people that encountered out there probably had some challenges. but like i said i'm not new to , this. this is not my first rodeo. i understand there will be opposition. and you should expect that. you also have to know that donald trump is tough. i am tossed. and we're going to continue to fight for this country. host: are you enjoying your job? omarosa: i love what i do. job in they the best white house. [laughter] i really do. what wouldinally, your dad think? omarosa: my dad would be proud of me. i think i have exceeded all expectations for a little girl who grew up in westlake projects, in abject poverty, with a single mother, limited resources and opportunities. i truly found a way, through faith in god and an incredibly supportive mother, and an incredible determination to be

the best omarosa i could be. sittingyself centered, right here, at the center of the political universe, and helping to really impact change in ways that cannot be measured. host: thank you for your time. guest: thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] which is-0184 responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> president trump was questioned by reporters about rising tensions with north korea. here is their exchange. >> mr. president, what did you mean about military solutions are locked and loaded? trump we : are looking at that carefully. i hope they understand the gravity of what i said. what i said is what i mean. hopefully they will understand what i said and the meaning of those words. those words are very very easy to understand.

>> any progress on the diplomatic back channels? trump: we do not want to talk about back channels, we want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many years, decades actually, through numerous administrations, they didn't want to take on the issue. i have no choice but to take it on and i am taking it on. we will either be very successful quickly, or very successful in a different way quickly. , >> angela merkel says there .hould be no military solution why is she wrong? pres. trump: she is speaking for germany. let her speak for germany. she is a friend of mine, a very good person, a good woman, a .riend of ivanka she is referring to germany, and she is certainly not referring to the united state. i can tell you. >> you said you wanted to send a strong message. what do you say to your critics? they say that your rhetoric is raising the tension. pres. trump: it's me. if somebody said the same words, they would say what a great

thing, a wonderful thing. i will tell you, we have tens of millions of people in this country that are so happy with what i am saying. they are saying finally we have , a president that is sticking up for our nation and frankly friends andfor our allies. this man will not get away with what he is doing, believe me. if he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat, which he has done for years, and his family has been uttering for years, or if he does anything with respect to guam, or any other place that is an american territory or an american ally, -- regretuly regarded it and he will regret it fast. thank you all very much. >> later the president held a meeting with rex tillerson, h.r. mcmaster, and nikki haley to discuss how to respond to

threats from north korea. they spoke at the president golf club in new jersey. after meeting the president talked to reporters about north korea and u.s. llc in afghanistan, venezuela, and cuba. pres. trump: thank you, everybody. we had a very good meeting. we talked about north korea, as you can imagine and we are very much in agreement or i think we are very unified and we have it from the beginning, that this is an thing that has to stop. we feel that very strongly. i will be speaking to president xi tonight from china. we have been working very closely with china and other countries.