‘Smarter’ Nikki Haley wants to replace Trump, claims new book

Washington:  The controversies plaguing the White House after Michael Wolff's new book on Trump, found fresh momentum as US ambassador to UN Nikki Haley came up.

The book says, Haley considers herself next of kin toTrump and is regarded as “ambitious and much smarter than Trump,” The New York Times reported.

Haley’s prowess worried a top Trump aide while others sought to protect ‘Trumpism’ from the US envoy, who is regarded as a ‘moderate Republican,’ the book says.

The White House has rubbished the claims made in Wolff’s ‘Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House.’

US lawmakers pushed to suppress the release of the book on Friday, as Trump lambasted ex-top aide Steve Bannon for statements that appeared in the book.

“According to excerpts in the New York Times, Wolff says Haley decided by October 2017 that "Trump's tenure would last, at best, a single term." and thought she could be his heir apparent —something the president's inner circle saw as a danger given her relatively moderate views. Being seen as a challenge to Trump is sufficient for anyone to get fired by the mercurial President,” the Times of India reported.

Haley, born as Nimrata Randhawa to Sikh parents previously served as governor of South Carolina.

Haley befriended Ivanka Trump hoping to find a way into the inner family circle and received a considerable amount of grooming from the president in a "notable amount of private time" on Air Force One, Wolff claims.

The author who has claimed that his book ‘could bring the President down’ writes about Trump’s initial decision appoint Haley as secretary of state – a decision feared by Bannon, who later pushed for CIA director Mike Pompeo when rumours of Rex Tillerson’s possible resignation were afloat. "This was all part of the next stage of Trumpism — to protect it from Trump," Wolff writes.

Trump called the book “phony” claiming that he turned down Wolff many times and never spoke to the author, who he says had "zero access to White House."

"Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don't exist. Look at this guy's past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!" Trump tweeted following the row with Bannon for his alleged cooperation with Wolff in the book.

"Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!" the President tweeted.