Haley Denies Rumors of Affair With Trump

Date: 27 January 2018 - 21:46

News ID: ۴۹۳۷۳

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has responded to rumors that her swift ascension into President Donald Trump’s inner circle was a pleasant perk of an affair with the former business mogul.
Haley, speaking to Politico’s podcast Women Rule, said the rumors are "highly offensive” and "disgusting”. They’re not true, she said, and are simply the predictable result of a strong woman earning seats of power.
The rumors began after journalist Michael Wolff told television comedian Bill Maher that he was "absolutely sure” that Trump was having an affair. Wolff wrote the recently released book Fire and Fury: A year inside the Trump White House, which details a turbulent first year in Trump’s presidency.
Wolff, speaking to Maher, said that he was "absolutely sure” that the U.S. president is having an affair, but wasn’t confident enough to include the allegation in his book.
"Now that I’ve told you, when you hit that paragraph, you’re gonna say, ‘Bingo,’” he said. That comment sparked a furious search by people online to try and identify the sentence he referenced.
They landed on this line from Wolff’s book: "The president had been 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.”
"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,” Haley said on the podcast.
Haley was the governor of South Carolina during the 2016 campaign, and was reluctant to throw her support behind Trump’s campaign. At one point, Haley said that she was "not a fan” of Trump, prompting the then-candidate to claim that her constituents were "embarrassed” by her.
The former governor was already seen as a rising star in the Republican Party when she later joined the Trump administration, and had been picked by the party to deliver the yearly rebuke to President Barack Obama in 2016.
Wolff's book revealed that Haley is "as ambitious as Lucifer” and many in Trump's inner circle worry that she could be the heir to the presidency.
Haley had decided by October 2017 that "Trump's tenure would last, at best, a single term”, and thought she could be his heir apparent - something the president's inner circle has seen as a danger.