Nicolle Wallace just gave America a sneak peek behind the curtain of elite media snobbery—and let’s just say it wasn’t flattering.
During a segment on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, she offered a take on Walmart so laughably out-of-touch that even the baristas at her neighborhood Whole Foods probably cringed.
According to Wallace, Walmart is the kind of place you stop by only if you’re on a travel baseball trip and forgot a glove or a sock. That’s right—Walmart isn’t for actual shopping in Nicolle’s world. It’s a pit stop for emergencies, kind of like a gas station bathroom, but with discount socks and frozen peas. Because in the circles she runs in, people don’t shop at Walmart—they shop at places with truffle oils and sommeliers.
Let’s be clear: 255 million people shop at Walmart every week. That’s not a backup plan. That’s where America actually lives. While Nicolle Wallace is probably scanning the organic mushroom shelf at Zabar’s or planning her next lunch at a DC bistro with a prix fixe menu and a quinoa-based main course, regular Americans are buying groceries, diapers, socks, and yes—even baseball gloves—at Walmart. Because it’s affordable. Because it’s accessible. And because, contrary to the dismissive tone from her cable news perch, it works just fine.
But Wallace’s flub goes beyond just sneering at middle America’s favorite superstore. She went on to declare that the U.S. economy is in a state of “mortal danger.” Her reasoning? The Dow dropped 700 points in a single day. That’s it. A one-day market dip, and suddenly it’s doomsday. Never mind that the stock market is naturally volatile, and that a 700-point swing is about as common as a presidential gaffe these days. By that logic, a cold morning in April must mean the next Ice Age is upon us.
And, of course, blame for this impending economic apocalypse rests solely at the feet of—you guessed it—Donald Trump. She says voters didn’t sign up for this. Really? Because last time we checked, voters did sign up for strong borders, agency accountability, and a serious reevaluation of global trade deals that benefit foreign interests more than American workers. That was the deal. And as far as Main Street is concerned, it was a fair one.
What Wallace and her Beltway pals can’t seem to grasp is that most Americans want disruption when the status quo only serves the elite. They don’t cry foul when someone rocks the boat—they cheer, because the old rules were never written for them anyway. But when someone like Trump disrupts the wine-and-cheese cocktail hour of Washington politics, suddenly it’s a “mortal danger.”
This is the same Nicolle Wallace who once worked in Republican politics and now makes a living sounding like the host of a permanent book club on MSNBC. Her transformation from Bush staffer to liberal darling is complete—and it shows. Now she looks down her nose at Walmart shoppers while warning them that they’ll lose everything because Trump didn’t consult a Harvard economist before renegotiating trade deals.
The real story here isn’t a market dip or a Walmart drive-by—it’s the chasm between media elites and the rest of America. Wallace’s little slip wasn’t just elitist. It was honest. It’s what happens when someone forgets to code-switch for the cameras. She said the quiet part out loud: people like her don’t shop where you shop, live how you live, or understand the country outside their cocktail circuits. They just want you to vote the way they tell you to—and then quietly disappear back into the crowd, glove in hand.
