Donald Trump

Former ‘Apprentice' Star Appointed Director of African-American Outreach for Trump Campaign

Omarosa Manigault was dubbed the "woman America loved to hate" on the show's first season of "The Apprentice"

Donald Trump has reached out to a former contestant on his NBC show "The Apprentice" to help his campaign make inroads in the African-American community, where the GOP candidate suffers overwhelmingly negatively poll numbers.

Omarosa Manigault, who was dubbed by Jet magazine the "woman America loved to hate" on the show's first season in 2004 and has since become a campaign surrogate for Trump, announced Monday on MSNBC that she was appointed the director of African-American outreach for the Trump campaign.

A July Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Trump has zero percent support from the African American communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio, Manigult's home state. The poll shows Hillary Clinton as having 88 percent support among African American voters in Ohio and 91 percent in Pennsylvania.

Still, Manigult said her reality is that she is surrounded by African-Americans who support Trump's vision.

"I just spent an amazing weekend with African-Americans for Trump, about 300 of them," she said. "I'm just wondering who they called, because those numbers would be flawed according to the people who have come out to support at an amazing faith based service yesterday, with African Americans who support Donald Trump."

Speaking as the Republican National Convention began, the former reality TV star said Trump will help improve the economic conditions of the country's African-American communities.

Manigault spotlighted her hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, where she said the local African-American community is experiencing its highest rate of unemployment after seven years of a Democratic White House.

Asked why she thinks Trump has the temperament to lead the country, especially as the nation struggles to heal racial divisiveness, Manigault said she knows he can be an effective leader as president after knowing him for 13 years.

"I know his heart, I know the person that he is," she said. "I know what he can do in this roll to lead this country to a better better place."

Manigault was fired after the ninth week of "The Apprentice." She later appeared on other reality shows including "Fear Factor" on NBC and "Girls Behaving Badly" on Oxygen. She also returned to compete in "Celebrity Apprentice" and "Celebrity Apprentice All-Stars."

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