• Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the former White House staffer and “Apprentice” contestant, secretly recorded President Donald Trump when she worked in the administration, The Daily Beast reported.
  • Sources told the publication she used the recordings as leverage while shopping her book “Unhinged,” set to be released Tuesday.
  • Several described the recordings as everyday chatter but said Trump appeared to be on them, the report says.

The former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault-Newman secretly recorded President Donald Trump when she worked with him, The Daily Beast reported Wednesday.

Sources told The Daily Beast that the former “Apprentice” contestant used the recordings as leverage while shopping her book “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” set to be released Tuesday.

Several described the recordings as everyday chatter but said Trump appeared to be on them, the report says.

It has long been rumored that Manigault-Newman secretly recorded Trump on her smartphone.

The reality star left the White House in December after serving as the communications director for the Office of Public Liaison.

An excerpt from the book published on DailyMail.com last week included Manigault-Newman's claim that Trump had shown a "mental decline" that "could not be denied."

She wrote in the book that she was disturbed by Trump's interview with NBC's Lester Holt last year in which the president made disparaging comments about James Comey, the former FBI director.

While watching the interview, Manigault-Newman wrote, she "realized that something real and serious was going on in Donald's brain" and thought "Oh no! Oh no! This is bad!"

"Donald rambled. He spoke gibberish," she added. "He contradicted himself from one sentence to the next."

Manigault-Newman left the White House in December and disputes accounts that she was forced to leave, saying she resigned from her post.

She had long been close with Trump. In 2013, he tweeted that she "won't backstab" but "come at you from the front."