Maria Puente

USA TODAY

Speculation about who will get jobs in the Trump administration is rampant but surely the most famously combative job candidate has to be Omarosa Manigault, the ex-Democrat who played the arch-villain contestant from Season 1 of Donald Trump's reality show, The Apprentice.

But ask some of Manigault's former castmates (she was the only contestant fired by Trump three times from the show) what they think of Omarosa at the White House and you get opinions as divided as Americans are about Trump himself.

"What a smart move, and not a surprise, for Mr. Trump to get people on his team who want to help him achieve his goals," enthused Bowie Hogg, 38, a conservative Texan Trump supporter, businessman and local school-board member who also was on Season 1 and admires Manigault, with whom he's stayed in touch since 2004.

He says Omarosa, 42, has in abundance the quality Trump values most of all: Total loyalty.

"She never wavered on loyalty to him, no matter what happened. And he honors loyalty," Hogg says. "I do think she'd be a strong candidate in the African-American community. She’s a hard worker, you can like her or not, but no one can say she doesn’t work hard."

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A more sour assessment comes from business consultant Kwame Jackson, who was the second-to-last-man standing on Season I (he lost to Bill Rancic) and who spent the campaign on cable news criticizing Trump.

"I don’t think Omarosa should get any job, I am not a fan of her work or her ideals," says Jackson, 42. "Appointing her to direct African-American outreach is like appointing Benedict Arnold to lead the Revolutionary Army."

There is no confirmation that Manigault will be tapped by Trump nor any discussion yet about what her job might be . But she is being "mentioned," as the pols say in Washington, especially by Omarosa herself.

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On election night, she told The Hollywood Reporter that Trump asked her if she was "ready to come with me to Washington." On Wednesday, she tweeted a picture of herself with a poster of Trump. "My last briefing as senior adviser to #realDonaldTrump for campaign."

At least two wags on Twitter are already pushing "#ApprenticeCabinet."

It's not a totally off-the-wall possibility: Manigault was appointed Trump's adviser on outreach to African Americans in July. Trump still lost the black vote to Hillary Clinton, but not by as much as Mitt Romney did to Barack Obama in the 2012 campaign.

"It's higher than Romney but it's still single digits," says Jackson. "She doesn't have resonance in the black community."

Among the jobs Manigault could be suited for: Minority and millennial outreach, business outreach, communications and White House spokesperson, protocol, or just as a vaguely-defined "senior adviser" or "trusted confidant," as Valerie Jarrett has been for the two terms of the Obama administration.

“As Donald says, I am his Valerie Jarrett,” said Manigault during a one-on-one-interview at a business conference for multicultural women in June.

She's no policy poseur: Manigault once worked for Vice President Al Gore in the Bill Clinton White House. She's a church pastor, possesses a PhD in communications, and is an undisputed self-marketing whiz. She is certainly the most famous previously unknown castmember to come out of the Apprentice powerhouse.

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But she's also famous for clashing with practically everybody on the show, including celebrity castmembers such as Piers Morgan and La Toya Jackson. Like Trump, she was often caustic and unfiltered, with little patience for anyone she considered a fool. And a lot of people seemed foolish to her.

Her post-Apprentice years have featured more clashes, including with the family of her late fiance, actor Michael Clarke Duncan, over his will. After she was appointed to Trump's campaign, Spike Lee attacked her in a dramatic way: He posted a sideways photograph of Manigault wearing a clown nose.

"Omarosa grew up a fighter her entire life, she's not going to back down," says Hogg. "She's always going to give her opinion; it's one of her strengths and sometimes it can hurt her.

"She's always prepared to be the villain."