White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that she cannot rule out the possibility that an audio recording exists showing President Donald Trump using a racial slur to describe African-Americans.

Sanders told reporters that she has never heard Trump use the 'n-word' or anything like it, but conceded that she hasn't been a part of every meeting the president has taken. She was 22 years old when he allegedly used the racist language on the set of 'The Apprentice' in 2004.

'I can't guarantee anything,' Sanders acknowledged during her first briefing since Omarosa Manigault-Newman hit the media circuit to promote her aggressively salty memoir 'Unhinged.'

Sanders delayed the televised session until after Trump's newest White House apostate finished an MSNBC interview that created a mini-news cycle with her claim that Trump 'absolutely' knew about the impending 2016 release of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman before WikiLeaks splashed them online.

Manigault-Newman said she had sat down with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators and would provide more help if they asked for it: 'There is a lot of corruption that went on both in the campaign and in the White House and I'm going to blow the whistle on all of it.'

She had already released one new piece of audio Tuesday morning, showing former Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson affirming during a conference call that it was likely the future president used the n-word and a fellow former 'Apprentice' castmate had the audio.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that she cannot be certain that there are no tapes of the president using a charged, racial slur to describe African-Americans

Pierson had denied it Sunday, telling DailyMail.com she had never personally heard Trump use the n-word and was not a source of the rumor that Omarosa was reportedly obsessed with verifying.

Pierson also denied Monday night in a Fox News interview that the conference call ever occurred. 'That did not happen. It sounds like [Omarosa] is writing a script for a movie,' she insisted.

A day later she would try to shift the blame to Manigault-Newman, just hours after her book went on sale.

'It’s clear now that those rumors were always being circulated by Omarosa and her alone,' Pierson said.

Sanders framed Manigault-Newman during her press briefing as a person who 'showed a complete lack of integrity,' echoing the president's claims that he hired the reality TV phenom to work in in the White House because he 'wanted to give her a chance.'

She also denied that the president's most recent tweeted attack on Omarosa, a charge that she's 'that dog,' has anything to do with the African-American former aide's race.

The Trump spokeswoman said the president's slam had 'absolutely nothing to do with race' and that it was unfair for reporters to cherry-pick the times he lashed out at minorities.

OMAROSA'S N-WORD CLAIMS CAUSE CHAOS

At the center of the Omarosa tell-all are charges that Trump is a racist.

The author says she came to realize that about the former TV star she met 15 years ago, only after working at his White House for 11 months.

Sanders carefully conceded Tuesday that she had not asked the president point-blank if he had ever used the n-word smear that Manigault-Newman attributed to him.

'I can't guarantee anything. But I can tell you that the president addressed this question directly. I can tell you that I've never heard it,' she said, adding that if senior White House aides 'felt that the president was who some of his critics claim him to be, we certainly wouldn't be here.'

'There is a lot of corruption that went on both in the campaign and in the White House and I'm going to blow the whistle on all of it,' said Omarosa Manigault Newman in her latest TV interview

Sanders also claimed Trump's record of expanding economic opportunities for black Americans was far superior to his predecessor's.

'This president, since he took office, in the year and a half that he's been here, has created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans,' she claimed.

She also mistakenly declared that when President Barack Obama left the White House after eight years in office, he had created just 195,000 jobs for African-Americans.

'President Trump in his first year and a half has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years,' Sanders said.

The White House's Council of Economic Advisers fell on its institutional sword a few hours later, taking the blame for providing Sanders with bad information and tweeting the right numbers.

'Apologies for @WhiteHouseCEA's earlier miscommunication to @PressSec,' read the statement on the CEA's official Twitter account.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Obama's eight years as president brought new jobs to roughly 3 million African-Americans – about 15 times more than Sanders had given him credit for.

LEGAL REVENGE BID IS LAUNCHED BY TRUMP CAMPAIGN

CAMPAIGN'S LAWYER IS TRUMP INSIDER AND GAWKER-BUSTER Donald J. Trump for President has hired attorney Charles Harder to pursue legal arbitration against Omarosa Manigault-Newman. Harder helped win wrestler Hulk Hogan a $140 million verdict against Gawker Media after the website published portions of a sex tape without his consent. Gawker ultimately folded. The seasoned entertainment lawyer has also represented at least three members of the Trump family. In October 2017 presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner retained Harder to help him get through a marathon interview with congressional investigators probing alleged Trumpworld ties with Russia. President Trump himself in March added Harder to his legal team pursuing a $20 million lawsuit against pornographic actress Stephanie Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels. The 'adult' film star, Trump's lawyers argue, has repeatedly violated the terms of a 2016 non-disclosure agreement she signed in exchange for a six-figure payoff. Daniels claims she bedded the president in 2006 and 2007 after future first lady Melania gave birth to their son Barron. Melania hired Harder a few months before the 2016 election to sue two publications, including DailyMail.com's parent company, over stories linking her to the 'escort' trade in the 1990s during her modeling days. That legal action was settled out of court. Advertisement

Sanders was also widely criticized for telling reporters that the U.S. government has routinely required officials to sign broad non-disclosure agreements.

Manigault-Newman is not known to have signed an NDA at the White House.

President Trump's re-election campaign organization filed papers in New York on Tuesday demanding damages from Manigault-Newman for violating the terms of a similar secrecy agreement she signed in 2016 while she was a paid diversity-coalition adviser.

The legal filing claims the onetime campaign adviser and former West Wing aide disparaged Trump in her unauthorized tell-all book 'Unhinged,' breaking a written promise to refrain from denigrating him publicly 'during the term of your service and at all times thereafter.'

A campaign official said Tuesday in a statement that 'Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. has filed an arbitration against Manigault-Newman with the American Arbitration Association in New York City, for breach of her 2016 confidentiality agreement with the Trump Campaign.'

'President Trump is well known for giving people opportunities to advance in their careers and lives over the decades, but wrong is wrong, and a direct violation of an agreement must be addressed and the violator must be held accountable.'

Manigault-Newman will have two weeks to respond to the arbitration demand, according to a campaign source, who also confirmed the hiring of entertainment lawyer Charles Harder to handle the matter.

Harder has represented President Trump, Melania Trump and Jared Kushner in the past.

He's best known for bankrupting Gawker Media with a nine-figure lawsuit verdict after the website published a sex tape depicting pro wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Trump had launched his most personal attack yet against Manigault-Newman on Tuesday morning, just hours after her spicy memoir about working in the West Wing for 11 months went on sale.

'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!' the president tweeted.

The war of words concerns the former Trump aide's claims that the president was caught on a hot mic uttering the 'n-word' racial slur during a taping of 'The Apprentice' years ago.

See ya in court: President Donald Trump's campaign organization filed legal papers on Tuesday against Omarosa Manigault-Newman, demanding that an arbitrator make her pay for violating a 2016 secrecy agreement that it says is still in force

Manigault-Newman signed a non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreement in the summer of 2016 when she joined the Trump campaign; it requires her to refrain from denigrating him publicly 'during the term of your service and at all times thereafter'

A campaign official says the contract offered to Manigault-Newman early this year (portions shown above) was practically identical to the one she signed in 2016; this 2018 version prohibits disclosure of confidential information and public disparagement of the president and his family members; it also specifies that the signer is bound by it after the relationship terminates, essentially forever

Trump has denied it, saying Monday night on Twitter that 'I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, and never have.'

His latest tweet came after CBS aired new audio, provided by Manigault-Newman, of a 2016 conference call between high-level campaign aides that supports some of her claims about the rumored tape.

Nothing in the conference call recording establishes that an 'n-word' tape exists. It does, however, show Pierson, then the Trump campaign's national spokeswoman, telling colleagues that she thinks it did – and musing about how to 'spin it.'

A campaign official told DailyMail.com on Monday that a contract briefly offered to Manigault-Newman early this year is practically identical to the one she signed in 2016.

The more recent version, first published by The Washington Post, spells out how disputes are to be resolved by a neutral arbitrator in the state of New York, and specifies that the results are binding in court.

Although Manigault-Newman also worked for the Trump transition, and then for the White House, her 2016 agreement specifies that she is bound by it after the campaign relationship is over – essentially forever.

It prohibits disclosure of confidential information and public disparagement of the president and his family members.

'The campaign is holding her accountable for the 2016 nondisclosure,' a Trump ally told The Washington Examiner on Tuesday.

A campaign official told DailyMail.com on Monday that any legal action would subject Manigault-Newman to the loss of 'millions of dollars.'

'All her book money will be tied up with lawyers,' the official predicted.

Separately, a campaign official said Monday that the 2016 agreement was 'the same exact NDA that everyone else on the campaign signed.'

'She's violating it right now,' the official added.

I'LL HAND MY TAPES TO MUELLER SAYS OMAROSA

Manigault-Newman claimed just before the briefing that President Trump 'absolutely' knew about hacked Hillary Clinton emails in advance of publication during the 2016 presidential campaign, and vows she will further assist the Mueller probe if asked.

The former White House official, campaign aide, and reality TV star made the claim, without providing any details, in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC amid a furor over her new book, 'Unhinged.'

Manigault-Newman's book 'Unhinged' is on sale today

'There is a lot of corruption that went on both in the campaign and in the White House and I'm going to blow the whistle on all of it,' vowed the former Trump protege turned self-styled whistleblower.

Host Katy Tur pressed Omarosa on whether Trump knew about Hillary Clinton emails in advance of publication by WikiLeaks – a topic at the heart of the Mueller Russia probe.

'Absolutely. Yes. Yes,' she responded. But Manigault Newman, who confirmed she has spoken to Mueller's investigators, provided no corroborating information.

Asked if Trump should be afraid of more tapes in her possession,' she didn't give a direct answer. 'I think he should be afraid of being exposed as the misogynist, the bigot and the racist that he is.'

She also wouldn't comment on whether she had more tapes of the president, or if she planned to release more of them.

When Tur asked if Trump really had a 'back channel' to WikiLeaks, she responded: 'I didn't say that, you did. But I will say that I am going to expose the corruption that went on in the campaign and int he White House.'

Trump launched his most personal attack yet against Omarosa as her tell-all book about her 11 months in the West Wing went on sale

Trump ramped up his slash-and-burn campaign, calling Manigault-Newman 'that dog' and a 'crazed, lying lowlife'

TRUMP'S 'DOG' ATTACK CAUSES RACISM ROW

Some commentators leapt to attack Trump on Tuesday for calling Manigault-Newman a 'dog,' interpreting it as a separate racist attack.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin complained a half-hour later about 'the incredible racism of his twitter feed.'

'Who does the President attack on Twitter constantly? African-Americans. It's always black people that he's attacking. Not exclusively, but to a disproportionate extent,' he claimed.

'We sometimes forget, the entire basis for Donald Trump's political career is his racist attack on Barack Obama for not being born in the United States,' Toobin charged. 'That's how he became a public political figure. The tweet today calling Omarosa a "dog" is just part of that story.'

Trump has called a long list of celebrities 'dogs' on Twitter, including former chief strategist Steve Bannon, NBC News anchors David Gregory and Chuck Todd, political analyst George Will, Republican politician Mitt Romney, Democratic political consultant David Axelrod, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, conservative commentators Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson, right-wing media analyst Brent Bozell, liberal HBO host Bill Maher, rapper Mac Miller, actress Kristen Stewart and former Obama family pastor Jeremiah Wright.

April Ryan, a White House correspondent with American Urban Radio Networks, tweeted Tuesday: 'Let me be clear! Calling a Black woman a dog is unacceptable. This is a pattern. We saw it with the black football players moms. They were called sons of B*tches.'

Pierson denied Monday night in a Fox News interview that the conference call ever occurred: 'That did not happen. It sounds like she's writing a script for a movie.'

But in one snippet of the call, aired on 'CBS This Morning,' Pierson is heard telling Manigault Newman, communications adviser Jason Miller and longtime Trump Organization official Lynne Patton that the campaign needed a strategy to employ if the dreaded audio should surface.

'I'm trying to find out, at least, what context it was used in, to help us maybe figure out a way to spin it,' she is heard saying.

Pierson said Monday night on Fox News that the call documented in Manigault-Newman's latest audio never happened - then her denial of the call crumbled. She stands by her denial of the n-word tape existing

Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson says in the audio, played on 'CBS This Morning,' that 'he said it' and 'he's embarrassed' – referring to claims that Trump used the 'n-word' on a hot mic during taping of 'The Apprentice'

Patton and Pierson released a statement Tuesday morning in which they acknowledge talking about a purported 'n-word' tape but claim their denials only referred to Omarosa's description of a discussion prompted by a claim by pollster Frank Luntz that the recording existed

Pierson, Patton and Manigault-Newman are African-Americans.

Nothing in the new audio confirms that Trump ever said the 'n-word,' or that Manigault-Newman has heard it.

Patton and Pierson released a statement Tuesday morning in which they acknowledge talking about a purported 'n-word' tape, but claim their earlier denials only referred to Omarosa's description of a discussion prompted by a claim by pollster Frank Luntz that the recording existed and he had heard it.

Luntz has separately denied having any knowledge of anything related to the rumored tape.

AIDES' AWKWARD DENIAL OF N-WORD KNOWLEDGE

The statement from Patton and Pierson, however, is written in language that means the opposite of what they intend.

'No one ever denied the existence of conversations about a reported "Apprentice" tape. Of course, there were multiple discussions about it, as confirmed in the Huffington Post article last night, because Omarosa was obsessed with it,' they said.

'What has been definitively refuted is that we never had a call confirming that Frank Luntz, or anyone else, directly heard Donald J. Trump use derogatory language on this alleged tape.'

Trump campaign communications adviser Jason Miller (left) and National Diversity Coalition director Lynne Patton (right) were also on the 2016 conference call, according to Omarosa Manigault-Newman; Patton's voice appears to be among those on the recording made public Tuesday morning

Refuting that a call 'never' happened is the same as confirming that it did.

Patton says in the 2016 call audio, aired Tuesday, that she had spoken with Trump directly about claims that he had been recorded uttering the 'n-word' slur.

'I said, 'Well, sir, can you think of any time that this might have happened?' And he said no,' she recounted.

'Well, that's not true,' Manigault-Newman interjects.

Patton continued: 'He goes, 'How do you think I should handle it?' And I told him exactly what you just said, Omarosa, which is, well, it depends on what scenario you're talking about. And he said, 'Well, why don't you just go ahead and put it to bed?'

And then, the conversation's exclamation point. Katrina Pierson concludes: 'He said it. He said it. No, he said it. He's embarrassed.'

Manigault-Newman did some spinning of her own on Tuesday.

'I was surprised, as you heard on that recording, how no one doubted that he said it,' she said on 'CBS This Morning,' before claiming that the audio is real and 'they had tried to suppress this tape for so long.'

'LIKE A DOG': TRUMP'S HISTORY OF CANINE CUT-DOWNS ON TWITTER Donald Trump has used the word 'dog' to describe his enemies and irritants since at least 2012, digitally hanging the insult around the necks of at least a dozen people on both sides of the political aisle. An examination of the president's Twitter account turned up 15 such examples including the latest, a slam on Omarosa Manigault Newman. His other targets: his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, NBC News anchors David Gregory and Chuck Todd, political analyst George Will, Republican politician Mitt Romney, Democratic political consultant David Axelrod, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, conservative commentators Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson, right-wing media analyst Brent Bozell, liberal HBO host Bill Maher, rapper Mac Miller, actress Kristen Stewart and former Obama family pastor Jeremiah Wright. Trump has tweeted many times about media figures being 'fired like a dog' – language nearly identical to what he said Tuesday about Omarosa Manigault-Newman In 2016 Trump tweeted that Gregory 'got thrown off of TV by NBC, fired like a dog! Now he is on @CNN being nasty to me.' Weeks earlier he vented that Erickson was 'fired like a dog from RedState and now he is the one leading opposition against me.' Early in his presidential campaign he barked at Glenn Beck, who he said 'got fired like a dog by #Fox.' Days before declaring his candidacy, he lashed out at Todd, calling him 'sleepy eyes' and predicting he would 'be fired like a dog from ratings starved Meet The Press.' Trump called Rev. Jeremiah Wright 'a dog' in 2012, and six years later tweeted the same insult at his own former campaign CEO 'Sloppy Steve' Bannon Earlier examples included a slap at HBO 'Real Time' host Bill Maher, who he laughed was 'fired from ABC - in fact, fired like a dog!' The first recorded instance on Twitter concerned the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had ministered to President Barack Obama and his family in Chicago. Faced with evidence of Wright's past writings and the contents of his sermons, Obama distanced himself from his former pastor once he reached the White House. 'Obama called Reverend Wright his friend, counselor & great leader--then dumped him like a dog!' Trump tweeted in 2012. Advertisement

She also claimed that during the same 2016 conference call – in a moment not aired on CBS – Pierson 'says that she talked to Kellyanne [Conway], or Kellyanne discussed this with the President of the United States' aboard his Boeing 757 aircraft.

Conway did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Pierson told DailyMail.com in a statement early Tuesday afternoon that 'it’s clear now' that rumors of an 'n-word' tape 'were always being circulated by Omarosa and her alone.'

'In her secret tape recording of me, it was one of many times that I would placate Omarosa to move the discussion along because I was weary of her obsession over this alleged tape. To be clear, I never organized a conference call with Jason Miller to confirm Mr. Trump said anything,' she claimed.

'That discussion was nothing other than sifting through unconfirmed rumors regarding the Apprentice tape and the transcript supports my statement. Omarosa fabricated the story by conflating numerous discussions.'

THE APPRENTICE WHOSE FIRING HAUNTS HIM NOW

Manigault-Newman rose to national prominence because of her contestant role on 'The Apprentice,' Trump's reality TV show, where she played the role of back-stabbing villain.

From July 2016 through her White House firing in 2016 – another event she secretly recorded – she was an unabashed Trump booster, telling media interviewers that she would not be working for the president if she thought he was a racist.

That changed with the advent of a lucrative book deal.

Responding Tuesday morning to questions about why she would record conversations with her colleagues in 2016, as she did later in the White House, Manigault-Newman responded that she was acting out of self-preservation.

'I'm the kind of person who covers her own back. In Trump world, everyone lies. Everyone says one thing one day and they change their story the next day,' she insisted.

'I wanted to have this type of documentation so that in the event I found myself in this position where, as you said, they're questioning my credibility, saying they never discussed the n-word tape, they had never heard these accusations, the president had never heard these accusations, when, in fact, this tape proves that they discussed it at high levels of the Trump campaign.'

POTUS says former White House staffer @Omarosa lied when she called him a racist who has said the N-word on tape. But a new recording, obtained by @CBSNews overnight, seems to back up Omarosa's story that several Trump advisers discussed an alleged tape during the 2016 campaign. https://t.co/tV3R6P2TvE — CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) August 14, 2018

Pollster Frank Luntz has already claimed that the premise of the conference call is false, and he never told anyone about a Trump 'n-word' recording because he has never heard it might exist

Patton released a statement Monday night in which she claimed she never participated in what appears to be the conference call documented by Manigault-Newman's audio

'Unhinged' describes the conversation as the consequence of Pierson's claim that pollster Frank Luntz had told her about the white-whale audio of a racist Trump venting privately at blacks on the set of 'The Apprentice.'

Patton said Monday night in a lengthy statement that 'at no time did I participate in a conference call with Katrina Pierson advising me, Jason Miller and Omarosa Manigault-Newman that Frank Luntz had heard President Donald J. Trump use a derogatory racial term – a claim that Luntz himself has also denied.'

Luntz tweeted last week: 'I'm in @Omarosa's book on page 149. She claims to have heard from someone who heard from me that I heard Trump use the N-word. Not only is this flat-out false (I've never heard such a thing), but Omarosa didn't even make an effort to call or email me to verify. Very shoddy work.'

Manigault-Newman confirmed Tuesday morning on CBS that she hadn't asked Luntz whether the story was true before naming him in print.

Trump tweeted Monday night that Mark Burnett, who produced 'The Apprentice' and 'Celebrity Apprentice' for NBC, had called him 'to say that there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa.'

'I don't have that word in my vocabulary, and never have. She made it up,' the president claimed.