WASHINGTON, August 14, 2018 — Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday said she knows nothing about a tape on which President Donald Trump is alleged to have used a racial slur referring to African-Americans.
“I know nothing about it, actually,” Conway said while speaking to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House.
Conway, who managed Trump’s 2016 campaign during the last months before the election, contradicted herself shortly after by admitting that she’d discussed the alleged recording with then-candidate Trump.
She explained that “it was [her] job to tell the president every rumor, innuendo, fact, fiction.”
But she maintained that during her tenure with Trump, she’d never heard him use language along those lines.
“I’ve worked alongside Donald Trump for two straight years, I’ve never heard him say anything about that,” she said.
Rumors of the so-called “N-word tape” had dogged Trump since his days as a candidate and reached a fever pitch after the release of a tape depicting an appearance by Trump on “Access Hollywood,” in which he boasted of grabbing women by the genitals.
The days after the October 7 release of the “Access Hollywood” tape became a crucible for Trump’s long-shot campaign, and he has since divided Republicans into two groups — those who stuck with him after the tape’s release, and those who called for him to drop out of the race.
That tape gave rise to yet more talk of more tapes, with much of that talk coming from Actor Tom Arnold, a former contestant on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Arnold has repeatedly suggested, during the campaign and afterward, that reality show producer Mark Burnett, who controls the master tapes of “The Apprentice” and its related shows, is in possession numerous recordings which document Trump’s routine use of insensitive and/or offensive language on the set of his show.
But Burnett has refused to release any such tapes, citing intellectual property concerns, and Arnold’s credibility was called into question after he falsely claimed to be working with ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen during a live TV interview.
But the same rumors began to look more credible Tuesday morning, after ex-Trump aide Omarosa Manigault Newman released a recording of several Trump campaign aides, including current campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, discussing the tape.
On the recording, Pierson told fellow aide Lynne Patton: “He said it [the N-word]. No, he said it. He’s embarrassed.”