Thanks to their NDAs, Trump officials have no credibility. These clips prove it.
"Why should we trust anything you say, when you are legally bound to say good things?"
On the heels of former Trump campaign and White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman saying she's heard tape of President Trump using the N-word, Trump's allies have taken to the cable news networks to defend his reputation.
But there's one big problem — because they've signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), even if they have heard Trump using a racial slur, they're legally prohibited from saying so.
Omarosa says she isn't in possession of a recording of Trump using the N-word, but she has produced a recording of an October 2016 call in which top Trump campaign officials seemingly strategized about how to spin a tape of Trump using the N-word on the set of The Apprentice.
As ThinkProgress detailed on Tuesday, Pierson has already gotten caught lying about the tape. During a Tuesday evening appearance on Erin Burnett's CNN show, she tried to explain away her contradicting statements by insisting that when she said Trump "said it," she was just trying to placate Omarosa and keep the call moving, not in fact confirm that Trump used a racial slur.
"Yes I did, actually," Pierson replied.
"So basically if you had heard him say the N-word, you wouldn't tell me about it anyway?" Burnett followed up.
But even if Pierson did choose to leave the campaign over Trump's use of a racial slur — Omarosa's tape of the October 2016 call indicates she was in fact primarily concerned about spinning it — the NDA she signed would prohibit her from publicly speaking out about it.
This point was highlighted hours earlier during MSNBC's interview of another Trump 2020 spokesperson, Marc Lotter.
Saying the N-word, however, is not a crime.
CNN reports that the Trump campaign is using the NDA Omarosa signed while working with the Trump campaign in 2016 to try and silence her through arbitration proceedings.