Shuts down interview

Mika Brzezinski shuts down interview with Michael Wolff over Haley comments

By LOUIS NELSON

MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski abruptly ended an interview with author Michael Wolff Thursday morning after Wolff denied that he had accused U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley of having an affair with President Donald Trump.

Wolff, the author of the incendiary but error-specked book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” was on set with Brzezinski on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday for a conversation that initially focused on the ongoing Russia investigation.

The conversation quickly turned to remarks Wolff made last week on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” where he said he claimed to know that Trump was having an affair but could not responsibly say with whom. Instead, Wolff pointed viewers to a passage located somewhere at “the end of the book” that would single-out Trump’s mistress.

Readers quickly identified a passage in which Wolff wrote 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.” Haley, in an interview with POLITICO, called Wolff’s insinuation “disgusting” and “highly offensive.”

But Wolff insisted, much to the agitation of Brzezinski and others on the “Morning Joe” set, that he had not made any suggestion about Haley.

“I found it puzzling that she would deny something she was not accused of,” he said. “I didn't infer anything about Nikki Haley. What I inferred was that the president is – is that many of the people around the president believe he is still involved with various women.”

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 B.S. here.”

Wolff then asked Brzezinski to read to him the remarks he had made in which he supposedly had accused Haley of having an affair with the president. The demand, which Brzezinski refused, was apparently the last straw.

“If you don’t get it, if you don’t get what we’re talking about, I’m sorry. This is awkward. You’re here on the set with us, but we're done,” she said. “Michael Wolff, thank you. We're going to go to break now. Bye, everyone. We'll be right back.”

Wolff turned to Twitter to get the last word over Brzezinski, writing “my bad, the President is right about Mika,” a reference to Trump’s repeated criticisms of the “Morning Joe” host.

“To be invited on a show with the purpose of being thrown off...is the new television… In other words, I had to say what Mika wanted me to say, or else...the hook!” Wolff wrote in a series of posts about his quick ouster from the show. “The last time I was on Morning Joe off camera Joe and Mika eager to gossip about who Trump might be sleeping with… It really would be hard to gossip more eagerly off camera than Mika and Joe gossip.”