What To Know
- Nicolle Wallace laughed on-air after Donald Trump lashed out at her MS NOW colleague Jake Traylor.
- The president called Traylor “fake news” for questioning the dropped reflecting pool vandalism case.
- Wallace said that MS NOW must have ‘touched a nerve.’
Nicolle Wallace couldn’t help but giggle at Donald Trump on Monday (August 3) after the president lashed out at her MS NOW colleague Jake Traylor during an Oval Office press meeting.
Trump was fielding questions on several topics, including interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who recently dropped the charges against former Olympian David Hearn, the man federal prosecutors had accused of damaging the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool.
“The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism,” Pirro wrote in a 20-page court filing.
After Trump said that Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella,” Traylor asked whether the president was “reconsidering” Pirro’s role following the collapse of the case against Hearn.
“You’re fake news,” Trump snapped at Traylor. “Don’t ever talk to me again. You’re one of the worst in the business.”
After playing a clip of the exchange on Monday’s edition of Deadline: White House, Wallace laughed and said, “I think we touched a nerve there.”
She continued, “Traylor [was] pressing about the simple fact pattern from Donald Trump, the District of Columbia, Trump’s buddy Jeanine Pirro dropping the charges of vandalism her office had filed against former Olympian David Hearn less than one month ago.”
“While Pirro promised that her office would prove the charges of vandalizing the reflecting pool beyond a reasonable doubt, her office found that despite Trump’s claims that, quote, ‘I’m a really good builder,’ it was his shoddy contractors, not vandalism at all, responsible for the lining coming apart in pieces,” Wallace added.
According to The Huffington Post, Trump had previously attacked Traylor and MS NOW during the press conference over other questions. “They have the worst people on that channel,” the president said, while also claiming the channel changed its name from MSNBC to MS NOW “because nobody watched it.”
Trump has frequently criticized the news network and its reporters over the years. In early 2025, he said that MS NOW (then MSNBC) was “close to death” and that its star anchor, Rachel Maddow, would soon “be off the air.”
Deadline: White House, Weekdays, 4/3c, MS NOW