MAGA pundits and right-wing influencers are furious over Nicolle Wallace’s remarks about President Donald Trump making a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor an honorary Secret Service agent. Many are calling for Wallace to be fired for what they call her “deranged” and “repulsive” comments.
During his speech to Congress on Tuesday night, President Trump recognized DJ Daniel, a young boy dressed in a police uniform sitting in the gallery with his father. Trump shared that Daniel had survived brain cancer, despite doctors giving him just five months to live back in 2018.
“DJ was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018. The doctors gave him five months at most to live. That was more than six years ago,” Trump said, earning loud applause. He then surprised Daniel by making him an honorary Secret Service agent, telling the boy, “Police departments love him. And tonight, DJ, we’re going to do you the biggest honor of them all. I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.”
After Trump’s speech, which lasted nearly two hours, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow criticized the president for what they saw as using Daniel’s cancer survival for political gain.
“For the record — and this is disgusting — the president made a spectacle out of praising a young man who’s thus far survived pediatric cancer, as if the president had something to do with that,” Maddow stated, while going through a lengthy fact-check of Trump’s speech. She also pointed out that Trump’s administration had cut funding for pediatric cancer research, saying, “This was in the midst of him praising DOGE. The DOGE cuts, among other things, have cut off funding for ongoing research into pediatric cancer.”
Wallace went further, calling the moment “genuinely beautiful,” but she felt it was overshadowed by Trump’s policies. “Problem is, in the beauty of that child is the tragedy of the Trump presidency, because we don’t know how he survived pediatric cancer, but it is likely he benefited from some sort of cancer research,” Wallace stated. “And it is a fact that Trump has slashed cancer research. It’s a fact, by eliminating NIH and by all the cuts, pediatric cancer trials are halted.”
She also raised concerns about Daniel’s future in law enforcement, especially in light of Trump’s pardons for the people involved in the January 6th Capitol riot. “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 declared. “And I hope he isn’t one that has to testify against the people who carried out acts of seditious conspiracy and then lived to see Donald Trump pardon those people.”
Wallace’s comments quickly sparked outrage among Trump supporters. Conservative figures on social media called her remarks “sickening” and accused her of politicizing a moment that should have been nonpartisan.
“This is genuinely the most repulsive comment I’ve heard in a very long time from anyone on television,” Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk raged, adding, “MSNBC should fire Nicolle Wallace. Disgusting.”
Steve Krakauer, an executive producer for Megyn Kelly, called Wallace’s comments the “most odious thing” he’d ever heard on cable news. “Totally broken-brained punditry,” he tweeted.
Other conservatives, like former Georgia state representative Vernon Jones, called Wallace a “liberal racist piece of sh*t” and demanded that MSNBC fire her immediately. Far-right figures like Ian Miles Cheong also called Wallace “unhinged.”
Fox News also piled on in the video below:
