NEW YORK _ The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is lashing out at rumors she had an affair with President Donald Trump, calling the gossip "highly offensive" and "disgusting."
Nikki Haley told Politico's "Women Rule" podcast Friday that salacious suggestions made by author Michael Wolff, who penned the explosive White House insider tome "Fire and Fury," were "absolutely not true."
The 46-year-old married mother of two said she has faced similar insinuations in the past and dismissed it as resentment borne from jealousy.
"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."
Haley, a rising star in the Republican Party, was the first female governor of South Carolina. She joined the Trump administration despite initially criticizing the president's candidacy.
Wolff planted the seed of an affair between Haley and the president during an interview with Bill Maher last week.
He claimed on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" that he didn't have the "ultimate proof" to include the incendiary claim that Trump and Haley were sleeping together.
Readers flagged a passage about the pair spending time together on Air Force One as evidence of an extramarital affair and rumors took off online.
The speculation came as it was reported that Trump's lawyer paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.
Haley balked at the insinuations.
"I have literally been on Air Force One once and there were several people in the room when I was there," Haley said, referring to a flight from Washington to Long Island, N.Y., 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."
Wolff has faced criticism for the claims in his Trump tell-all, which became in instant bestseller despite attempt by the president to halt its publication.
Trump said the book was "full of lies."
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