Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff’s time on MSNBC’s Morning Joe came to an abrupt end on Thursday morning, after host Mika Brzezinski called him out over recent rumors involving President Donald Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.
Wolff, whose bestselling book purports to offer a behind-the-scenes look at Trump’s White House, was on the program to discuss a report in The New York Times about the former spokesman of Trump’s legal team, Mark Corallo. But the conversation soon turned to Wolff’s previous claims that the president is currently having an affair with someone in his administration. While the author has not publicly identified Haley as the other participant in the alleged affair, the U.N. Ambassador has still become the subject of incendiary rumors as a result of Wolff’s statements, forcing Haley to publicly rebuke said rumors—a point that Morning Joe panelist Susan Del Percio raised with Wolff this morning during the Morning Joe segment.
“I did not go after her,” Wolff said of Haley on Morning Joe, adding that he “found it puzzling she would deny something she was not accused of.”
Brzezinski followed up by asking Wolff, “Do you regret inferring anything [about Haley]?” Wolff, who denied inferring that Haley is engaging in an affair with Trump, had previously said the U.N. Ambassador was “embracing” the rumor.
“Michael, you said she has embraced it,” Brzezinski said. “You might be having a fun time playing a little game, dancing around this, but you’re slurring a woman. It’s disgraceful.”
Wolff continued to deny accusing Haley of anything, but Brzezinski essentially cut off the conversation, saying “we don’t B.S. Here” and declaring Wolff’s time on the program as “done.” After the segment ended, Wolff took to Twitter to complain about Brzezinski’s treatment of him and the pivoted conversation from the new Times report to criticism of the author.
My bad, the President is right about Mika.
— Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) February 1, 2018
To be invited on a show with the purpose of being thrown off…is the new television.
— Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) February 1, 2018
In other words, I had to say what Mika wanted me to say, or else…the hook!
— Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) February 1, 2018
And let me repeat: Nikki Haley has chosen to vociferously deny something she was not accused of.
— Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) February 1, 2018
Wolff also claimed that, in the past, Brzezinski and co-host Joe Scarborough have been “eager to gossip” about Trump’s alleged affair.