Mark Halperin’s Game Change partner was “flabbergasted and shocked” by the sexual assault allegations

The New York Times

John Heilemann, who co-wrote the original Game Change book with Halperin and who has appeared with him on Showtime’s The Circus, MSNBC and Bloomberg News, said he got an abrupt call from a shaken Halperin last week just before CNN broke the sexual assault allegations story. Halperin apologized in the brief conversation. “I had never heard of, been exposed to or had any inkling of the notion that he had engaged in any behavior that could be described in even the broadest sense of being sexual harassment or sexual assault,” says Heilemann, whose nine-year partnership with Halperin was very lucrative for both men. Now, the partnership is over and the roughly 300 interviews they conducted for their new Game Change book and HBO miniseries are in limbo.