Washington: US ambassador to United Nations Nikki Haley has slammed rumours that she was having an affair with President Donald Trump as “highly offensive” and “disgusting”. The rumours stem from author Michael Wolff of the bestseller “Fire and Fury”, who suggested in an interview that Trump was having an affair and that the liaison was with someone detailed in his book.
Haley - the first ever Indian-American Cabinet-ranking official in any presidential administration - quelled the rumours. She hit back at Wolff’s assertion that she was spending a lot of private time with Trump on his presidential plane and in the Oval Office. “I have literally been on Air Force One once... He (Wolff) says that I’ve been talking a lot with the president in the Oval about my political future... I am never alone with him.” She attributed the rumours to sexism from a “small group of men” uneasy with strong-willed women.
"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," Haley said. "And the way they deal with it is to try and throw arrows - lies or not - to diminish you."
Haley, who was South Carolina's first female governor before taking a role in the administration, said she has had to weather similar attacks and salacious rumors throughout her career in politics. "This isn't something that's just happened as a Cabinet member: I saw this as a legislator, I saw this when I was governor, I see it now, I see them do it to other women," Haley said.
Haley said that the attacks don't deter her from doing her work. "Do I like it? No. Is it right? No. Is it going to slow me down? Not at all," Haley said. "Any time this has happened, it only makes me fight harder, it only makes me work harder. And I do it for the sake of other women that are behind me."
The rumor she now faces is being fueled by Wolff, who teased in an interview with Bill Maher last week that his book contained a clue as to someone with whom Trump was having an affair. Wolff said he was "absolutely sure" the claim was true but it is "so incendiary that I just didn't have the ultimate proof." Trump has slammed "Fire and Fury" as "phony" and the White House called it a "book full of lies.
