Some were annoyed this morning when they learned a Politico reporter had questioned U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley about a rumor alleging she is having an affair with President Trump.
To some, it looked as if the reporter had traded an opportunity to cross-examine one of the highest-ranking women in the Trump administration for lurid innuendo. This isn’t really the case.
Politico’s Elaina Johnson was right to ask Haley about the rumor, which originates with New York journalist and noted fabulist Michael Wolff.
I am “absolutely sure” the president is having an affair, Wolff said last week on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
The author, who has achieved widespread acclaim for his factually challenged tell-all, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, explained he did not name names in his book because he did not have enough proof (or, as he called it, “a blue dress”). Still, Wolff assured his audience, a very thorough reading of the book would reveal Trump’s secret lover.
“You just have to read between the lines,” he said. “It’s toward the end of the book. You’ll know it. Now that I’ve told you, when you hit that paragraph you’re going to say, ‘Bingo.’”
From these sleazy and unsubstantiated remarks sprung the Haley paramour rumor, as Fire and Fury readers zeroed in on a passage in which Wolff claimed Trump was “spending a notable amount of private time with Haley on Air Force One and was seen to be grooming her for a national political future.”
On Thursday, Haley denied the raunchy insinuations, going as far as to accuse the author of fabricating even the small details.
“I have literally been on Air Force One once and there were several people in the room when I was there,” she told Politico’s Women Rule podcast Thursday in response to a question about the affair rumor.
“He says that I’ve been talking a lot with the president in the Oval about my political future. I’ve never talked once to the president about my future and I am never alone with him,” she added.
It’s worth noting Wolff’s slop isn’t even original. Haley faced similar unsubstantiated sex scandal rumors when she served as the governor of South Carolina.
“I saw this as a legislator,” she told Politico. “I saw this when I was governor. I see it now. I see them do it to other women. And the thing is, when women work, they prioritize, they focus, and they believe if you’re going to something, do it right.”
This response, and the fact that Politico afforded Haley the opportunity, is why Johnson was right to bring up the rumor.
First, contrary to certain criticism of the interview, Politico didn’t lead with questions about the affair. In fact, Johnson didn’t get to that question until 31 minutes into a 37-minute interview. It’s not as if Haley appeared on the podcast only to have her professional accomplishments and other far more pressing international issues overshadowed by Wolff’s garbage.
Secondly, this affair nonsense isn’t just some Internet forum rumor. Wolff and Maher have put this particularly vicious gossip into the mainstream. Maher has a significant platform on HBO, and Wolff is still reveling in the acclaim heaped on him by his news media colleagues. So, it is fair that Haley was given a similarly impressive media platform to respond to rumors made against her character. It’s fair that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. was given a chance, and a sizable audience, to defend herself.
The only question now is: Will Wolff’s recent supporters in the news business, including MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, who claimed “the spirit of [his book] is completely true,” and Katy Tur, who said much of what she read in the supposed tell-all “feels true,” continue to promote his evidence-free brand of “journalism”?
