MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace claims she simply "misspoke" when she accused President Trump of wanting to "exterminate Latinos." It was actually her guest, NBC News' Paul Reyes, who said it first during a discussion on her program on Tuesday. In their analysis of the mass shootings that occurred in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio last weekend, Reyes tied Trump's rhetoric to the El Paso suspect's anti-immigrant manifesto. Trump, Reyes suggested, was trying to attempt an "extermination" of migrants coming across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Instead of correcting him, Wallace quoted him as though he had stated a fact.
"President Obama used the power of the presidency to try to pass comprehensive immigration reform, with the Latino community, Latino leaders, at the table," she said. "You now have a president, as you said, talking about exterminating Latinos."
It seems she got some obvious backlash because she's now apologized on Twitter.
I misspoke about Trump calling for an extermination of Latinos. My mistake was unintentional and I’m sorry. Trump’s constant assault on people of color and his use of the word “invasion” to describe the flow of immigrants is intentional and constant.
— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) August 7, 2019
To quote the RNC, that's not nearly good enough.
This is what Nicolle Wallace calls “misspoke.”
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 7, 2019
“You now have a president, as you said, talking about exterminating Latinos.”
Utterly ridiculous.
She uses her airtime to consistently say incendiary things about @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/gx8Ec0oiet
President Trump is heading to both Texas and Ohio today to meet with the communities who were affected by last weekend's tragedies.