MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace said she made the decision during President Donald Trump’s first term to stop airing White House press briefings on her program because she found them too difficult to watch.
Speaking with former CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta on Monday’s episode of her Best People podcast, Wallace reflected on her reaction to briefings conducted by then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, saying she refused to continue broadcasting them.
“I stopped carrying Sarah Huckabee Sanders briefings, just refused to carry them,” Wallace said. “Because having worked there, it like actually hurt me to watch her lying.”
Wallace, who previously served as communications director during President George W. Bush’s second term, said she understood that every White House communications team attempts to present events in the most favorable light possible.
According to Wallace, “every press secretary and every White House” works to secure positive media coverage and put its own spin on the news. However, she argued that what she described as the Trump administration’s “lies” regarding illegal immigration crossed a line she was unwilling to overlook.
The MSNBC anchor also discussed Trump’s treatment of Acosta during his years covering the White House for CNN. Wallace said she was troubled by the president’s repeated criticism of Acosta and by Trump’s characterization of members of the mainstream press as the “enemy of the people.”
Wallace’s weekday MSNBC program debuted in May 2017, roughly two months before Huckabee Sanders became White House press secretary. Sanders served in that position until July 2019, becoming one of the administration’s most visible public spokespeople during Trump’s first term.
The discussion turned to the relationship between the Trump administration and the press, with Acosta arguing that Trump continues to pressure news organizations in much the same way he did during his first four years in office.
Acosta cited two developments that he said particularly frustrated him: the Associated Press being removed from Air Force One and the White House taking over assignments for the presidential press pool.
“It’s totally nuts,” Acosta said. “And I don’t know why the networks and the major newspapers ever tolerated that.”
Throughout the conversation, both Wallace and Acosta criticized Trump’s approach to the media, with Wallace describing her personal decision to stop airing White House briefings as a response to what she viewed as repeated falsehoods from the administration.
Acosta later broadened his criticism beyond the media relationship, arguing that Trump’s immigration enforcement policies are causing significant harm to the country.
“We’re going to have to survive this and overcome this, or else our kids and our grandkids are doomed,” Acosta said. “They cannot live in a country where fascist white nationalist authoritarianism takes over. It will lead to mass suffering.”
Wallace’s remarks offered a glimpse into how she approached covering the Trump administration during its first term, explaining that her past experience working inside a Republican White House influenced her reaction to the administration’s public messaging.
The podcast conversation largely focused on the media’s role in covering the Trump presidency, with Wallace explaining why she chose not to continue broadcasting Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ press briefings and Acosta arguing that news organizations should have taken a stronger stance against what he described as efforts to pressure or limit the press.
