The White House has admitted that it "cannot guarantee" that there are no existing tapes of Donald Trump using racist slurs including the N-word while filming The Apprentice, putting distance between itself and the president's assertions on Twitter.

Press secretary Sarah Sanders was forced to address the issue after former White House aide and Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault Smith made claims about Trump's racism in a tell-all book.

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When pressed by journalists on whether she would categorically state that no such tapes exist - a position which Trump himself has taken up, tweeting the claim that Apprentice producer Mark Burnett had assured him as much - Sanders said, "I can’t guarantee anything". Instead, she pointed to Trump's tweets on the matter, in which he asserted: "I don’t have that word in my vocabulary and never have".

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.@MarkBurnettTV called 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. Look at her MANY recent quotes saying.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018

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....such wonderful and powerful things about me - a true Champion of Civil Rights - until she got fired. Omarosa had Zero credibility with the Media (they didn’t want interviews) when she worked in the White House. Now that she says bad about me, they will talk to her. Fake News! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018

That doesn't quite chime with what other people who worked on The Apprentice have said about Trump's alleged use of racist slurs. Bill Pruitt, who produced the first two seasons of the show, said that there were "far worse" tapes than the infamous "grab 'em by the pussy" one which surfaced before the election, while producer Chris Nee has written that she had "heard rumours" of tapes on which Trump used the N-word too.

Despite not claiming to have heard Trump use the N-word in her book, Unhinged, Manigault Smith - who also revealed that she has been interviewed by the Mueller investigation - told NPR on Friday that she did hear the president using the word. Trump responded by calling her a "dog".

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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! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018

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