Long before she was his chief antagonist, Manigault-Newman was tapped by President Trump to handle veterans issues for the White Housecausing immediate backlash from vets organizations who read this as a slap in the face and a betrayal of his campaign rhetoric about taking care of our veterans.
After some vocal public shaming from military veterans and advocates, Trump, accompanied by Manigault-Newman, met with principals from various vets organizations in the Roosevelt Room on March 17, 2017.
The president began going around the room asking the different representatives what they were working on and how his administration could help, having made veterans issues a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign rhetoric.
Soon, he got to Rick Weidman, co-founder of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), who was one of Vietnam vets in the room that day, having served a tour of duty in 1969 as a medic.
According to two sources in the room who requested anonymity, this is when things went off the rails.
During the course of the meeting, Weidman brought up the issue of Agent Orange, an extremely notorious component of the U.S. herbicidal warfare on Vietnam. Weidman was imploring the president and his team to permit access to benefits for a broader number of vets who have said they were poisoned by Agent Orange.
Trump responded by saying, Thats taken care of, according to people in the room.
His reply puzzled the group.
Attendees began explaining to the president that the VA had not made enough progress on the issue at all, to which Trump responded by abruptly derailing the meeting and asking the attendees if Agent Orange was that stuff from that movie.
He did not initially name the film he was referencing, but it quickly became clear as Trump kept rambling that he was referring to the classic 1979 Francis Ford Coppola epic Apocalypse Now, and specifically the famous helicopter attack scene set to the Ride of the Valkyries.
Source present at the time tell The Daily Beast that multiple peopleincluding Vietnam War veteranschimed in to inform the president that the Apocalypse Now set piece he was talking about showcased the U.S. military using napalm, not Agent Orange.
Trump refused to accept that he was mistaken and proceeded to say things like, no, I think its that stuff from that movie.
One clue belying the presidents insistence is that the famous Robert Duvall line from the scene in Apocalypse Now, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, is not I love the smell of Agent Orange in the morning.
He then went around the room polling attendees about if it was, in fact, napalm or Agent Orange in the famous scene from that movie, as the gatheringorganized to focus on important, sometimes life-or-death issues for veteransdescended into a pointless debate over Apocalypse Now that the president simply would not concede, despite all the available evidence.
Finally, Trump made eye contact again with Weidman and asked him if it was napalm or Agent Orange. The VVA co-founder assured Trump, as did several before him, that it was in fact napalm, and said that he didnt like the Coppola film and believed it to be a disservice to Vietnam War veterans.
According to two people in attendance, Trump then flippantly replied to the Vietnam vet, Well, I think you just didnt like the movie, before finally moving on.