The Atlantic

The White House's Striking Equivocation on a Trump N-Word Tape

The president’s spokeswoman has risked her credibility for him time and again, but on Tuesday she wouldn’t give a direct answer about whether he was recorded using a racist slur.
Source: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

The request didn’t seem all that difficult: Could President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman say that he didn’t use the N word on tape?

Yet time after time during Tuesday’s briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders parried the question, refusing to give a simple “yes” or “no.” Rather than answer the question herself, she repeatedly directed reporters to , in which he said that the producer Mark Burnett “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

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