A MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ interview with ‘Fire and Fury’ author Michael Wolff was shockingly cut short after the host accused him of “slurring” US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley.
A media darling just a few weeks ago, the author of the explosive tell-all about President Donald Trump’s first year in office was effectively kicked off mid-air by presenter Mika Brzezinski on Thursday. Wolff was accused of insinuating that Haley was having an affair with Trump.
Haley has since been forced to deny the rumors, describing them as “disgusting.”
“You might be having a fun time playing a little game, dancing around this but you are slurring a woman, it’s disgraceful,” Brzezinski told Wolff.
Wolff countered: “Mika, again, she has been accused of nothing. She has decided to deny what she has not been accused of. Certainly I didn’t accuse her of this.”
“Are you kidding? You’re on the set of Morning Joe. We don’t BS here. If you don’t get what we’re talking about, I’m sorry, this is awkward, you’re here on the set with us, but we’re done. Michael Wolf, thank you,” Brzezinski said, before calling time on the interview.
The on-air clash came after Wolff wrote in ‘Fire and Fury’ that “the president had been spending a notable amount of private time with Haley on Air Force One.”
Last week, Wolff fueled rumors of an alleged presidential affair when he told 'Real Time' with Bill Maher that he didn’t have the “blue dress” to include the full details in the book. That was a reference to Monica Lewinsky's garment bearing evidence of her trysts with Bill Clinton in 1998.
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“You just have to read between the lines,” he said. “It’s towards the end of the book. Now that I’ve told you, when you hit that paragraph you’re going to say ‘bingo.’”
Readers had taken this to mean a segment in the ‘Fire and Fury’ epilogue, which details Haley as being the “closest” of Trump’s cabinet members.
The episode has spurred mixed reactions online, with one Twitter user pointing out an apparent double standard by the media when covering the details contained in ‘Fire and Fury’.
Just this past weekend, the book was read by various celebrities and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, during a segment at the Grammy music awards.
Some commentators noted that Brzezinski – whom Wolff described as a semi-official Trump adviser in the book, but who has been an outspoken critic of the president on her show – was hypocritical. Others called out the media for promoting Wolff in the first place.