Nutty Nicolle Wallace: Trump 'Literally Muzzled' Media, Obama Had 'No Scandals'

Tim Graham
June 28th, 2026 1:17 PM

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Nicolle Wallace may be popular among MS NOW viewers, and that might be because she says remarkably untrue things that please the so-called progressives.

On Friday’s Deadline: White House, as she boasted about how Barack Obama is still waaayy more popular than President Trump, she uncorked several whoppers, like Trump has “literally muzzled” half the media. How on Earth do you say a network like CBS has been "literally" silenced by Trump?

WALLACE: Donald Trump has, as the Rev was saying, not just all the trappings of the office, he's literally muzzled half of the media organizations. Um -- only approved deals to put them under his political donor and friend, the Ellison family. And President Obama is still twice as popular as he is.

JONG-FAST: Yeah, because president Obama created Obamacare. I mean, remember before President Obama, people did not have health care.

People “had no health care” until Obama came along, imagine that. The idea that even CBS under the Ellisons (they don’t control CNN yet), or any network that settled a lawsuit with Trump is “literally muzzled” is completely at odds with reality.

Reckless Wallace also uncorked the old whopper that Obama had “no scandals” – twice.

 

JONG-FAST: You know, it's just to look back on someone who took it so seriously and whose word was their bond is it's really striking.

WALLACE: Who had no scandals, who did not breed algae in any of our monuments, who did not attack our allies, who did not start wars, that he promised --  I mean, the comparisons go on and on. And I'm sure that's what drives Trump so nuts.

Obama had “no scandals”? False. No algae in the Reflecting Pool? False. He never criticized our allies? False. No "wars" started? Try again, with military actions in seven countries. You can imagine these lies might drive Trump a little nuts.

Earlier in the segment, Wallace claimed “absence of scandal,” sounding like CNN host Fareed Zakaria in 2016 boosting Obama's dignity and grace and his "largely scandal-free" administration. 

WALLACE: It’s been going on a decade since former President Obama left office, and he still lives completely rent-free inside Donald Trump's head. It's an unprecedented and deeply unhealthy obsession on Trump's part. It's the most public display of inferiority and insecurity about the superior job that president Obama did, and the real, serious presidential focus and dedication and high job approval rating numbers, and enduring likability and absence of scandal, or any crimes ever committed.”

Feel free to giggle at the idea that Nicolle Wallace or Team MSNBC ever stopped having a “deeply unhealthy obsession” with Trump, certainly after he left the White House in 2021. But this "no Obama scandals" line was routine on MS NOW around the Obama Presidential Center opening.

-- MS NOW contributor Claire McCaskill, June 18 Deadline White House: “There was no scandal. There was no lying. There was no grab for money.”

-- Michelle Norris on All In, June 19: “no scandals, no unforced errors.”

-- Sen. Dick Durbin on The Beat with Ari Melber, June 24: “I remembered a president we respected, a president who had no scandals in his administration of any major -- a president who really led this country, even though he was controversial to some.”

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