Podcast · ms.now
Deadline: White House
Nicolle Wallace, MS NOW
Drawing on years of experience as communications chief for President George W. Bush and senior advisor for the McCain-Palin campaign, Nicolle Wallace provides political insight and clarity on where the decision-makers stand on complex issues. Join her for analysis and discussion with the key newsmakers every weekday.
172 claims
False75% confidence5 sourcesOct 28, 2026Only one Republican senator voted against the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Said by CThe claim that only one Republican senator voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act is contradicted by the Senate tally: Republicans voted 30-2 on final passage (77-19 overall), so two Republicans opposed it. The claim matches the passage's wording, and the speaker's own 'only one' figure is the claim being checked, not evidence for it.False60% confidence3 sourcesOct 28, 2026Approximately 3% of the American public believes that Vladimir Putin is great.Said by BPew Research Center surveys in 2026 put American confidence in Putin at about 6% to 10%, so the claimed 3% falls well below the recorded range on the closest available measure. The sources do not measure how many Americans call Putin 'great', so the figure is contradicted by a comparable measure rather than by a direct match.False85% confidence8 sourcesOct 22, 2026George W. Bush called the midterm election in his first term a shellacking.Said by BThe sources attribute the word "shellacking" to Barack Obama's 2010 midterm, which was his first-term midterm, not to George W. Bush. Bush's characterization of his midterm defeat was "thumpin'," and that loss came in 2006, his second term; in his first-term midterm in 2002, his party gained seats.False90% confidence7 sourcesOct 22, 2026Donald Trump's current approval rating is below 30%.Said by 2CAs of 2026-10-22, Trump's approval was 31% in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the lowest reading of his presidency, and other polls and averages put it at 33-38%. No source reports a figure below 30%, so the claim that it was below 30% is contradicted, and later polls (32% to 37%) show it stayed above that line.False65% confidence7 sourcesSep 7, 2026The current approval rating for the war is less than 20%.Said by AThe claim that current approval of the war is below 20% is contradicted by every poll in the sources, which put approval of Trump's handling of the Iran war at roughly 26-35% in the months around 2026-09-07. The claimant's passage hedges with 'I think', and the sources give no figure near 20%.False60% confidence7 sourcesSep 7, 2026The current conflict in the Middle East is taking place in a territory two and a half times the size of Iraq.Said by BThe post's 'this place' refers to Iran, and the 2.5x-Iraq figure is contradicted by multiple sources that put Iran at roughly 3.8 times Iraq's area (about 1.65 million km² vs 438,000 km²). The claim also treats the conflict's territory as Iran, while NYT describes the war's reach as more than four million square miles, so the extraction is not a clean match to the post.False60% confidence4 sourcesSep 7, 2026Americans began casting their ballots on September 4, 2026.The claim that Americans began casting ballots on September 4, 2026 is contradicted by sources saying the earliest in-person early voting opened September 18 in Idaho, Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia, with Vermont and Illinois following later. The post's September 4 event was North Carolina beginning to mail absentee ballots, which is not casting ballots, and the sources do not address whether any voters returned ballots before September 18.Mixed45% confidence3 sourcesOct 28, 2026In Georgia, ballots cast by Black voters are up 15% while ballots from white voters are down 3% compared to the previous midterm cycle.Said by BThe claim's direction for Black voters is supported: Georgia's early electorate shows Black voters rising to 32.4% of ballots from 30.2% in 2022. The sources do not report the 15% and -3% ballot-count changes, and their raw totals (2,826,146 early votes in 2026 vs 2,511,966 in 2022, with white voters at 1,484,965 in 2026) imply white ballot counts roughly flat to slightly up, not down 3%. The white share fell from 58.2% to 52.5%, so the 'down' appears to reflect share rather than count. The claim is quoted from Bloomberg and repeated by Charlie Sykes, so it is not independently corroborated. The 'as of 2026-10-28' snapshot is also a moving target, as the totals rose through Nov 1.Reported in the post, not stated as its own.Mixed60% confidence6 sourcesOct 28, 2026Brad Raffensperger passed a voter suppression law in Georgia.Said by BSources show Georgia's 2021 SB 202 was approved by Republican legislators and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, not passed by Raffensperger, who is Secretary of State. They also show he publicly supported and defended the law, so he backed it but did not pass it; the 'voter suppression' label is critics' characterization, not a finding.Mixed65% confidence6 sourcesOct 28, 2026Louisiana redistricted the second and sixth districts to eliminate majority Black seats.Said by ASources support that Louisiana's 2026 congressional map eliminated one majority-Black district, the 6th (Cleo Fields' Baton Rouge-to-Shreveport seat), but they show the 2nd District remained majority-Black, so the claim that both the 2nd and 6th were redistricted to eliminate majority-Black seats is only partly right. The 2nd was redrawn but not eliminated.Mixed60% confidence5 sourcesOct 28, 2026Jon Ossoff lost his 2017 special election campaign for Congress in the North Atlanta suburbs by a couple of points.Said by 2DOssoff did lose the June 2017 runoff in Georgia's 6th District, a North Atlanta suburban seat, so the core fact holds. However, the margin was about 4 points (51.9% to 48.1%), roughly double the 'couple of points' the claim states, so the magnitude is overstated relative to the record.Mixed60% confidence6 sourcesOct 28, 2026Federal corruption and conflict of interest laws do not apply to the president.Said by 3CThe sources strongly support that the federal conflict-of-interest statute (18 U.S.C. § 208) and its definitions exclude the President, so that part of the claim holds. The broader wording 'corruption ... laws do not apply' is contradicted by sources stating that bribery law (18 U.S.C. § 201) and the STOCK Act still apply to the President. The passage itself says 'corruption and conflict of interest laws that regulate many government officials,' which the extraction dropped, and on that narrower reading the claim is largely supported.