Mark Wallace, Nicolle’s Husband: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace is married to former diplomat Mark Wallace, who worked in the George W. Bush Administration as a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The Wallaces have one son, Liam Wallace.

The 45-year-old Nicolle Wallace also worked in the Bush Administration as Director of Communications from 2005 to 2006 after working on President George W. Bush’s successful reelection campaign. In 2008, she worked as a senior advisor for Arizona Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Wallace was also an advisor for the McCain-Palin campaign.

She turned to television in 2014 when she joined The View for a short time. She later joined MSNBC and NBC News, where she now hosts MSNBC’s Deadline: White House. Nicolle Wallace also frequently appears on The Today Show and Morning Joe.

Here’s a look at Mark Wallace.

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1. Mark & Nicolle Both Worked for Jeb Bush Before Joining the George W. Bush Administration

Both Mark and Nicolle Wallace got their start in politics in Florida, working for Jeb Bush. According to Wallace’s bio as President George W. Bush’s 2004 Deputy Campaign Manager, he worked on Jeb Bush’s 1994, 1998 and 2002 political campaigns in Florida. He also worked on George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign in Florida.

Nicolle, who was born Nicolle Davenish, also worked for Governor Jeb Bush as press secretary in 1999 and worked for the Bush campaign in the 2000 Florida recount.

Before starting his career in politics, Wallace was a lawyer, earning his law degree and bachelor’s degree from the University pf Miami. He was also a partner at Stack Fernandez Anderson Harris & Wallace P.A. in Miami.

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2. Wallace Is CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran and the Counter Extremism Project

Wallace is the CEO of two advocacy groups. The first is United Against a Nuclear Iran, which is chaired by former Senator Joe Lieberman. The group is non-profit and non-partisan, and hopes to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Wallace co-founded the group with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and Middle East expert Dennis Ross.

Wallace is also the CEO of the Counter Extremism Project. Fran Townsend, who was briefly considered for FBI director by President Donald Trump, is the group’s president. Lieberman is also on the advisory board of the group.

“The Counter Extremism Project will expose the architecture of support for extremist groups and their ideology and combat their spread by pressuring their financial support networks, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations,” the group’s mission statement reads.

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3. Wallace’s Group ‘Vigorously’ Opposed the Obama Administration’s Iran Nuclear Deal

United Against a Nuclear Iran has voiced opposition against the deal the Obama Administration reached with Iran in 2015 to limit the Iranian government’s nuclear program.

“There are those of us who are concerned that unless there’s a change in Iran’s other egregious behavior, its nascent nuclear status is problematic,” Wallace told the Washington Post a year after the deal was signed.

In a December 2016 op-ed for the Washington Post, Wallace and Lieberman wrote that they “vigorously” opposed the Iran nuclear deal and hoped that the Trump administration would negotiate a better one.

“If Iran does not change course, the president-elect should make clear he is prepared to impose a new round of comprehensive secondary sanctions against Iran — and then to walk away, with cause, from the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]. Then it will be time, as the president-elect has said, to tear up this agreement,” Wallace and Lieberman wrote.

In February, Wallace also wrote an op-ed for Fox News, warning that Iran still poses a threat.

“There is no shortage of examples or evidence, no lack of statements from leading government officials. Iran is unabashedly encouraging proxy wars throughout the Middle East,” Wallace wrote for Fox News. “And the current nuclear deal provides a terrorism slush fund to increase those actions.”

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4. Wallace Spent His Time in the UN Focused on Corruption in UN Programs

At the start of his second term, President George W. Bush nominated Wallace as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Representative for U.N. Management and Reform, and he was confirmed by the Senate. As Wallace notes in his bio, he spent much of his time at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. focusing on corruption in UN programs.

Wallace was responsible for exposing the “Cash for Kim” scandal, Fox News reported in 2007. It was discovered that the UN Development Program spent $27.7 million in North Korea over a period of decades, without any proof that the money was being used to help the population, not Kim Jong Il.

Wallace also made other high-profile decisions at the UN. In 2009, he voted against using UN money for Durban II, a UN conference in Switzerland that was a review of the The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. The U.S., Canada and Germany were among the Western countries that boycotted it. The only head of state to attend was then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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5. Mark Proposed to Nicolle on the Day of Bush’s Second Inauguration

Nicolle revealed in a Woman Around Town interview that Wallace proposed to her on the day of President George W. Bush’s second inauguration. The next day, she was called into the Oval Office to show off the ring to the President.

The Wallace family splits their time between New York City and Roxbury, Connecticut. In a 2012 interview with the Litchfield County Times, Nicolle said her favorite room in the house was Liam’s. Their son is now five years old and, after he was born, Bush wrote a letter to him.

Both Nicolle and Mark Wallace were featured in HBO’s Game Change. Nicolle was played by Sarah Paulson, while Ron Livingston played Mark.

“True enough to make me squirm,” Nicolle told the Litchfield County Times when asked what she thought of the movie. “But, um, you know, this isn’t a movie about campaign staff, and this isn’t really even a movie about McCain and Palin. This is a movie about the vast gray area in which 99 percent of our politics takes place. And I think what gets boiled down or sometimes the fights, the instant analysis, the black and white of who’s up and who’s down, the truth is … you’re just feeling your way through a very gray area and you’re doing your best.”

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