Michael Wolff And The Age-Old 'She's A Slut' Shaming Of Nikki Haley's Meteoric Rise

'Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski shut down an interview with 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House' author Michael Wolff on Thursday over her claim that Wolff insinuated strongly that he had accused U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley of having an affair with President Donald Trump. 

The conversation initially focused on the Russian investigation but then turned to remarks Wolff made last week on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.”  Wolff claimed to know that Trump was having an affair and pointed viewers to a passage located near "the end of the book" where her name would be found. 

Readers zoomed in on a passage in which Wolff wrote that Haley “had become a particular focus of Trump’s attention, and he of hers” and another in which he wrote “that [Haley], with requisite submission, could be his heir apparent.”  Egging them on, Wolff continued: “Now that I've told you, when you hit that paragraph, you're gonna say, 'Bingo.'”

To be clear, I've had people reaching out to me to ask if I think Haley is having an affair with Trump.  I've said no. 1) As racist and germaphobic as Trump is, I don't see him bedding a woman of color. Trump has very definite preferences for women from Slavic countries and -- most probably -- Russia. 2) First and foremost, while I detest Nikki Haley's UN Ambassador policies and how she is hurting women worldwide with cuts to their access to birth control, HIV drugs and a host of other women's health necessities, I consider her to be whip smart. For a woman of color to rise as she has in the Republican party, she knows every pothole in the road, and the double-trouble hate she faces if she is linked to 'sin'. So I just don't see Haley having an affair with Trump.

Politico picked up the story for their Women Rule Podcast with the UN Ambassador last weekend, asking her about the allegations. Wolff suggests that she should have refused to answer the question, because he hadn't actually accused her. Hmmmm. Is there any other woman referenced at the end of the book?

Listen, I was asked if I'm a harlot on the witness stand in Lebanon, PA. Dressed in olive drab silk, with a pussycat bow, my crime was a rose jacket that was part of the ensemble. My business partner's lawyer had tried to beat me down for nearly eight hours in front of a very conservative court. When nothing worked, he asked me why I was so totally disrespectful of the court -- did I always dress in flashy colors and show such total disrespect to the jury? Translated -- he was slut-shaming me, when he couldn't discredit my testimony as a calm, articulate, on-the-side of right, witness. 

Being wise to the strategies of men trying to sell books or triumph over women in just about any situation, Haley answered the question in her Politico podcast. 

“It is absolutely not true,” Haley said, arguing that Wolff not only has his facts wrong, but that his insinuation is similar to other attacks that she and other successful women have faced when they've been forced to swat down suggestions they've slept their way to the top.

“I have literally been on Air Force One once and there were several people in the room when I was there,” she said in an interview Thursday, 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.”

“So the idea that these things come out, that’s a problem,” she said. “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.” Wolff did not respond to a request from Politico for comment.

Returning to Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski is not a particularly articulate person. An informed listening of the show will find her sighing more than anything, adding little nonsense phrases when anyone else is talking and rarely making an informed, authoritative statement in traditional sentence format. Mika suffers from a permanent condition of liberal angst that renders her unable to speak. Instead, she feels things deeply. 

I honestly didn't know what was going down on the show and probably many others didn't either. Being asked about Haley and Trump, I didn't know about Wolff's HBO appearance and his direct insinuations about Nikki Haley. 

Politico writes: "After some back and forth, Brzezinski suggested to Wolff that he “might be having a fun time playing a little game dancing around this, but you're slurring a woman. It's disgraceful.” Wolff once again insisted he had not made any insinuation about Haley, to which Brzezinski replied, “Come on. Are you kidding? You're on the set of ‘Morning Joe.’ We don't BS here.”'

I nearly choked over that line -- the no BS -- having watched Mika crucify Hillary Clinton month after month over the server and emails. And like every other Clinton supporter, the total amnesia that Morning Joe has about initially building Trump's profile by giving him daily airtime and call-in privileges, I think a lot of BS goes down on Morning Joe.

Putting my Mika grievances aside, now that I Googled my way to a full understanding of what they hell she was talking about, Brzezinski was right to shut down Wolff.  

Related: Other pundits are weighing in

Michael Wolff and the Smearing of Nikki Haley The Atlantic