(CNN) — Magician Penn Jillette, one half of the duo Penn &Teller, claims he heard President Donald Trump say “racially insensitive” remarks during his time appearing on the reality competition show, “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
Jillette stopped short of confirming the details of Trump’s alleged comments, but his assertion comes at a time of renewed discussion about whether Trump purportedly said the N-word, a racial epithet, during production of the reality TV series.
“He would say racially insensitive things that made me uncomfortable,” Jillette told Vulture in an interview. “I don’t think he ever said anything in that room like ‘African Americans are inferior’ or anything about rape or grabbing women, but of those two hours every other day in a room with him, every ten minutes was fingernails on chalkboard.”
Asked if tapes of Trump making those comments exist, Jillette said, “Yeah, I was in the room.”
Jillette gave one example of Trump speaking about women in a demeaning way, but declined to provide more specifics.
“If Donald Trump had not become president, I would tell you all the stories. But the stakes are now high and I am an unreliable narrator,” he said. “What I do, as much as anything, is I’m a storyteller. And storytellers are liars. So I can emotionally tell you things that happened racially, sexually, and that showed stupidity and lack of compassion when I was in the room with Donald Trump and I guarantee you that I will get details wrong.”
Jillette appeared on Seasons 5 and 6 of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” the latter of which was an all-star season and also featured Omarosa Manigault Newman.
Manigault Newman, a former Trump aide, claims in her new tell-all book, “Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House,” that Trump used a racial slur on the set of the NBC reality show.
This week, Trump fired back Manigault Newman in a tweet, saying, “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, 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!”
Trump’s use of the term “dog” drew a firestorm of criticism.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has said the book is “riddled with lies and false accusations.”
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