Author Michael Wolff said in a new interview released Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley "seems to have embraced" the rumor that she is having an affair with President Donald Trump.
Two interviewers with theSkimm, a company that seeks to advise female millennials on how to "live a smarter life," noted to Wolff that Haley has "come out quite vocally, really distraught" about the rumor, which he started.
"Or she seems to me, I would say, she seems to have embraced it," Wolff interjected. "All she does is hammer on this fact. If I were being accused of something—and I am not accusing her of anything—I mean, she hasn't tried to avoid this, let's say."
Wolff's comments came after Haley told Politico in an interview last week that the allegation about her having an affair with Trump is "disgusting," "highly offensive," and "absolutely not true."
Days before the Politico interview, Wolff, author of the new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, told HBO's Bill Maher that he is "absolutely sure" Trump is having an affair while in office, but did not have the evidence to prove it. Wolff added that he left a clue in his book, and that "when you hit that paragraph, you're gonna say, 'Bingo.'"
Some readers have pointed to one passage in Fire and Fury, where Trump is described as "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."
Haley countered that she has "literally been on Air Force One once and there were several people in the room when I was there."
"I've never talked once to the president about my future and I am never alone with him," Haley added. "At every point in my life, I've noticed that if you speak your mind and you're strong about it and you say what you believe, there is a small percentage of people that resent that and the way they deal with it is to try and throw arrows, lies or not."
In his interview with theSkimm, which the Washington Examiner flagged, Wolff said that neither he nor his book accuse Haley of having an affair, "so in effect some other reporter accused her."
One of the women interviewing Wolff asked the author if he understands how the rumor could lead some to question how a woman could reach such a high-powered position as Haley has, and the implications of such questions at a time of heightened discussions about women's interactions with men in the workplace.
"I don't understand how anything would be interpreted," Wolff said. "I mean, literally, the book is the book."