As President Donald Trump continued his crusade this week against so-called “vandals” to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace railed against his “lies” after his own Department of Justice dismissed the vandalism claims and blamed the job’s contractor.
But while it’s easy to shrug off the finger-pointing as “frankly stupid” and “nonsensical,” the “Deadline: White House” host maintained that Trump’s lies were still dangerous.
The Wednesday segment began with footage of Trump speaking from the Oval Office, arguing that the reflecting pool has been leaking since 1922 — “it always leaked!” — and that the issue was made worse by vandals during his renovations.
Wallace mocked that Trump “has a really intimate knowledge of the history of the reflecting pool — including things that are totally made up.”
“Donald Trump’s nonsensical and still very dangerous response and utterances to his reflecting pool vandalism lies have been undermined by his own Justice Department, and it is not a story to be ignored as insignificant,” she said. “His outright refusal to be persuaded by facts and evidence and admit that anything Trump did was wrong, in this case with the pool contractor her hired in no-bid contract had done is symptomatic of a larger, more grave issue.”
Watch the full segment below:
Quoting Tom Nichols of The Atlantic, Wallace read: “It is a warning that the president has encased himself in the hard amber of irrationality that inevitably surrounds authoritarian leaders. He has become detached from reality, and that detachment is extremely dangerous.”
Wallace continued her case by pointing to the “remarkable rebuke” from Trump ally and former Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro (now the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia).
“But since her findings went against what Trump wanted to hear, the former Fox News host soon found herself having to appear before Trump directly,” Wallace said of her Oval Office meeting with the president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
“An Oval Office battle royale over holes in the pool liner may seem frankly stupid and insignificant at a time when our country is dealing with a war and economic calamity,” Wallace admitted, “but the ordeal is no joke.”
Watch the full “Deadline: White House” segment in the video above.
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