Rachel Maddow Called Out For Pushing Niger Conspiracy

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow’s latest anti-Trump conspiracy theory was so outlandish that even the dependably liberal HuffPost criticized it as "so flimsy that it could be debunked by a quick glance at a map," reports FoxNews.

On Thursday evening, "The Rachel Maddow Show" opened with a somber 25-minute diatribe that attempted to connect the tragic ambush attack that killed four American soldiers in Niger to the latest version of President Trump’s proposed travel ban, which included the nation of Chad. Maddow essentially claimed that the inclusion of Chad, which recently pulled its troops out of Niger, in the revised travel ban resulted in extremist attacks such as the one that left four Americans dead.

Maddow has seen increased viewership as the triggered left tunes in to watch her condemn Trump on a nightly basis.


The HuffPost published a story headlined, "What the hell was this Rachel Maddow segment?" The MSNBC host proclaimed that Chad’s pullout from Niger "had an immediate effect in emboldening ISIS attacks," but the HuffPost easily shot down her theory.

Colby College Department of Government assistant professor Laura Seay told the HuffPost that "any expert" would have said Maddow's conspiracy theory was "crazy" and the pullout of Chadian troops isn’t necessarily related to the Trump’s travel ban.

While the MSNBC host called the tragic attack on American troops "absolutely baffling," Seay said it was actually "almost inevitable," because it's such a remote and hostile area.

"The attacks that have increased can be traced back to militant group Boko Haram, which is based just across the border in Nigeria," the HuffPost reported, citing the Council on Foreign Relations and accounts from local residents.

The HuffPost’s Willa Frej wrote that Maddow built "myths" using unrelated or unreliable information and "reduced the story so thoroughly that it lost any semblance of the larger truth."