Meet Nicolle Wallace, the TV anchor and ex-White House aide facing backlash for her comments about Trump’s controversial ‘honouring’ of a 13-year-old cancer survivor
Wallace worked with George W. Bush and the John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential campaign, had a cameo in Robert De Niro’s Zero Day, and is married to Pulitzer-winning journalist Michael Schmidt
“I hope he has a long life as a law enforcement officer, but I hope he never has to defend the United States capitol against Donald Trump’s supporters. And if he does, I hope he isn’t one of the six who loses his life to suicide,” Wallace opined on MSNBC, referencing the January 6 Capitol attack. Meanwhile, Maddow labelled Trump “disgusting”, reported the New York Post, claiming he “made a spectacle out of praising a young man who’s thus far survived paediatric cancer – as if the president had something to do with that”.
Wallace’s comparison drew the ire of netizens, who took to social media to demand she be fired.
What is Nicolle Wallace’s background?
Wallace, 53, hails from Orinda, in the Bay Area of California, where she grew up with her parents and three siblings, per the Cal Alumni Association. According to The New York Times, her mother was a teacher and her father worked as an antiques dealer. She studied mass communications at the University of California, Berkeley, which her siblings also attended and earned her master’s in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She worked as a general news reporter before moving on to politics.
She has worked in the White House
Wallace served as George W. Bush’s communications director in the White House and took up the same role for his re-election campaign. Before that, she worked with his brother, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, as his press secretary. In 2008, she was a senior adviser to the John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential campaign.