Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski abruptly ends interview with Michael Wolff over his 'disgraceful' rumor-mongering
Author Michael Wolff appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday to talk about his controversial White House tell-all book, Fire and Fury. It did not go well.
The show's hosts specifically took issue with Wolff saying in interviews that if read closely, the book reveals President Trump is having an affair — and whom he is conducting it with. Readers scoured Wolff's book and deduced that Trump's purported mistress, per Wolff, is U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Asked by Politico about the rumor, Haley fiercely denied it, calling it "disgusting."
Wolff has curiously claimed that Haley has "embraced" the allegations. On Thursday, host Mika Brzezinski pressed the author on that claim, trying to make him take responsibility for his unfounded gossiping. "Do you regret inferring anything about Nikki Haley?" she asked. Wolff said he'd only pointed out that Haley and the president had spent "a notable amount of private time" together as she was positioning herself for a spot in the Trump administration.
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Brzezinski was unmoved. "You might be having a fun time playing a little game, dancing around this, but you're slurring a woman," she said. "It's disgraceful."
Wolff denied that he'd sparked the rumor, saying, "Certainly, I didn't accuse her of [having an affair with Trump]." Exasperated, Brzezinski said: "Come on, are you kidding?" When Wolff asked Brzezinski to "read me the language" from his book that insinuated Haley and Trump were involved, Brzezinski ended the interview.
Shortly after the on-air debacle, Wolff took to Twitter claimed that the show's hosts were actually rather interested in Trump's love life. Kelly O'Meara Morales
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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.
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