MSNBC “Deadline: White House” host Nicole Wallace admitted Thursday that she once encouraged Jeb Bush to physically attack then-candidate Donald Trump after a heated debate during the 2016 Republican primary race.
“I told Jeb Bush after that debate that I thought he should have punched [Trump] in the face,” Wallace said during her show. “He insulted your wife, he came down the escalator and called Mexicans rapists and murderers.”
Wallace — who worked for Bush when he was the governor of Florida — said Bush asked her what he could have done following Trump’s personal attacks, which included using the derogatory nickname “low energy” Jeb.
“I think you should have punched him in the face and then gotten out of the race. You would have been a hero,” Wallace said.
MSNBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bush, whose wife is from Mexico, initially was considered a favorite for the Republican nomination but suspended his campaign after a poor showing in early caucuses and primaries. Trump, who mocked Bush throughout the process, went on to shock Hillary Clinton on Election Day.
The president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., took to Twitter with his thoughts on Wallace’s comment.
“Is anyone shocked that the left wants people to resort to violence?” Trump Jr. wrote, captioning video of the MSNBC host calling for violence against his father.
Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra — who captured Wallace’s call for violence — pointed out that the MSNBC host once proclaimed she wanted to “wring” the “neck” of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Prominent Democrats have frequently been making headlines with rhetoric that seems to encourage violence against political opponents, highlighted by recent comments by President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder.
“It is time for us, as Democrats, to be as tough as they are, to be as dedicated as they are, to be as committed as they are,” Holder said Sunday. “Michelle [Obama] always says — I love her; she and my wife are like, really tight, which always scares me and Barack — but Michelle always says, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No. When they go low, we kick ’em.”
The ex-AG later tweeted that he was not “advocating violence” but merely saying Democrats need to be “tough.”
While Holder is a prominent Democrat, MSNBC’s Wallace served as White House communications director for President George W. Bush. She also worked on the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain.
Wallace once referred to herself as a “non-practicing Republican” and said earlier this year that she feels the GOP is currently “unrecognizable.”