Trump’s attacks on Omarosa are getting even more vicious

Sanders’s equivocation Tuesday is remarkable because it shows the White House is unwilling to categorically deny the existence of a tape—and might even be concerned that one exists. The president’s avid tweeting about Manigault-Newman suggests that the speculation touches a nerve for him, too.

Of course, Sanders could just be speaking cautiously, sticking only to what she knows to be true. But that would be out of character because in the past she has shown little such circumspection. For example, she flatly insisted Trump was unaware of any payments to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels. When it became clear that was false, she limply told reporters, “We give the best information that we have at the time.” Sanders can scarcely be acting to preserve her credibility, because she has little left to preserve.

Much of Tuesday’s briefing centered around Manigault-Newman, much to Sanders’s frustration. She accused the press of granting an unreliable source a platform, even though it was the president who had made her a household name on The Apprentice; hired her with a nearly $180,000 salary; and has been tweeting at length about her for two days. Yet Sanders also implicitly bolstered Manigault-Newman’s credibility, saying she had no reason to doubt the authenticity of a recording that Manigault-Newman released of a phone call she had with Trump after her firing.

Sanders portrayed the president as being helpless to resist the gravitational pull of the Omarosa news cycle. “If the media continues to give it wall-to-wall coverage, the administration in some cases will be forced to respond,” she said. “But I think that it would be better off for all of us to walk away and focus on some things that matter.”

She couldn’t avoid the story either, though. Sanders denied charges that Trump’s attacks on Manigault-Newman—whom he has called a “lowlife,” “dog,” and more—were racially tinged, saying the president says vicious things about all people, not minorities. “I think if you did a comparison, he probably has a lot more nasty things out there about some other people,” Sanders said.

America doesn’t need another tape to know who Trump is

She also claimed accusations of racism were politically motivated, saying that there had been no such accusations against Trump until he entered politics. In fact, such allegations have dogged Trump throughout his career. His first appearance in The New York Times, in 1973, came when the Department of Justice accused the Trump Organization of discriminating against black tenants. Between then and the start of his political career, there were numerous instances of race baiting, most notably his call for the executions of the Central Park Five. Then he launched his political career on the twin planks of denying Barack Obama’s citizenship and warning of Mexican criminal immigration. As my colleague Adam Serwer writes, the nation doesn’t need a tape of Trump using a racist slur to discern his view about minorities.