Jeffrey Caplan
Since “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff said during last week’s appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” that he’s sure President Donald Trump is currently having an affair, and that careful readers could determine his paramour within his pages, the internet has erupted with one constant name: Nikki Haley.
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The one-time anti-Trump governor of South Carolina became a favorite official of President Trump, who he tapped to be the ambassador to the United Nations.
Wolff said now that he’s given readers a hint, once they read the particular paragraph, they would say, “Bingo!” Readers have pointed out a paragraph that reads, “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.”
Bingo?
Not so fast, Haley is saying as she defends herself against rumors that she’s having an affair with the President of the United States. She joined Politico’s Women Rule podcast and said those rumors are “absolutely not true” and described them as “highly offensive” and “disgusting.”
“I have literally been on Air Force One once, and there were several people in the room when I was there,” she said on the podcast, referring to a flight from Washington to Long Island in late July. “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 continued: “So the idea that these things come out, that’s a problem. But it goes to a bigger issue that we need to always be conscious of: 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.”
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Haley, considered a rising star in the GOP when she joined the Trump administration, was no fan of Trump’s when he entered the 2016 presidential race. In fact, she said she was “not a fan” and Trump attacked her on Twitter, writing, “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!”
She has shown independent thinking by clashing with Trump’s views on Russia. She has consistently spoken in harsh terms against the country and Vladimir Putin, while Trump has never been able to criticize the Russian leader accused of meddling in the election to help Trump win.
Overall, Haley seems to have become a fan of President Trump, at least policy-wise, if not in execution.
“I agree with most everything he’s done policy-wise,” she said on the podcast. “I just have one way of dealing with it, and he has another, but we get along great, and I agree with most everything that he’s done.”
