Kellyanne Conway responds to Omarosa allegations: ‘None of us would be in White House' if Trump were racist

Ms Newman's book, titled Unhinged is due out this week

White House advisor Kellyanne Conway said “none of us would be” at the White House if Donald Trump was racist, following allegations from former presidential aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

Ms Conway told ABC News in the two years she has been working for Mr Trump she has “never a single time heard him use a racial slur about anyone.”

Ms Conway’s comment was a response to allegations in a new book by Ms Newman, a former contestant on the 2004 version of Mr Trump’s reality television show The Apprentice,

Ms Newman said recently she heard an audio recording of the president using the “n-word” several times while on the show’s set.

She had not heard the tape herself while writing the book, but only after it went to press but had heard it recently and said, for her, it “confirmed that he is truly a racist.”

She also called him a “bigot and misogynist” in the book, according to advance copies.

The White House has denied the allegations and Mr Trump has called Ms Newman a “lowlife”.

Ms Conway said she thought Ms Newman’s comment “unfortunately has undercut her own credibility”.

The White House aide and noted Republican political strategist noted Ms Newman said she had never heard the president use the racial slur upon her leaving the White House in December 2017, after she was sacked by chief of staff John Kelly.

However, it is unclear when exactly Ms Newman heard the tape for herself or if it will be released publicly at some point.

Ms Conway claimed the only reason Ms Newman’s story “changed is that she’s now selling books”.

She also said Ms Newman “is a tremendous disappointment here because she should be taking credit for all the great gains that this president has made with respect to that low unemployment number among African-Americans”.

While it is true black unemployment rates hit a historic low of 5.9 per cent in June 2018, it is still higher for blacks than any other racial group, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It is also true the rate actually began falling under Barack Obama’s administration and have been in steady decline since then, so full attribution for that likely does not lie with Ms Newman or the Trump administration.

During the ABC News interview, Ms Conway was also pressed to name a single senior White House advisor among the “55 top-paid” staffers who is African-American.

She named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson and Ja’Ron Smith, special assistant to the president for domestic policy, which operates under the overall Executive Office of the President.

Neither are in the West Wing of the White House.

Ms Conway deflected and said she “didn’t say that there wasn’t” a single African-American West Wing adviser, but that people should focus on the president’s actions not who he has hired.