MSNBC guest Rick Wilson misinformed viewers on Monday, falsely claiming that Fox News would not air ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s upcoming, highly anticipated congressional testimony – and MSNBC anchor Nicole Wallace didn’t correct the misinformation.
Wilson was seemingly repeating an already debunked claim originally made over the weekend by MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance.
“Fox isn’t showing Mueller’s testimony Wednesday. Trump is afraid of what will happen if his base gets to hear Mueller’s testimony for themselves,” Vance told her 337,000 Twitter followers on Sunday.
Fox News will cover the hearing in its entirety and Vance eventually deleted the message - but not until it received over 40,000 engagements.
Wilson appeared on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” and apparently missed the memo that Vance deleted her inaccurate tweet prior to his segment.
“Now Fox isn’t covering the hearings,” Wilson said during a discussion about the upcoming Mueller testimony.
Wallace didn’t correct him and responded, “Really?”
“They’re apparently not going to take them live. Everybody else is taking them live,” Wilson said, misinforming MSNBC viewers in the process.
MSNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News will not only air the testimony, anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, but its primetime lineup will provide a thorough analysis of the event as well. FNC’s coverage, which begins at 8 a.m. ET on July 24, has been heavily promoted.
Vance, who started the conspiracy theory that Fox News would not cover the hearings, chalked it up to “irony.” She spent a large portion of Sunday defending her misinformation as "sarcasm" and defending it as a joke before quietly deleting the message hours after it went viral.
Wilson is living proof that people took her inaccurate tweet seriously. He eventually tweeted a correction.