On her primetime show Thursday night, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow peddled an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that somehow the Trump administration’s travel ban led to the deaths of four U.S. special forces soldiers in Niger. The accusation was then repeated on Friday by fellow MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell despite a complete lack of evidence.
“September 24th of this year, which was three and a half weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it’s new Muslim ban….they added in North Korea, they added in Venezuela, and they added in Chad,” Maddow declared early in the 9 p.m. ET hour Thursday night. Connecting the supposed dots, she noted moments later: “On Friday of last week, the government of Chad announced that they had completed the withdrawal of all Chadian troops from their neighboring country, Niger, where for years they have been fighting ISIS-linked Islamic militants…”