It was all too convenient: a Trump-era immigration narrative, a sensational whistleblower claim, and a ready-made villain in a Georgia gynecologist. Add MSNBC’s hyper-political spin and serve it hot to a primetime audience desperate to see evil around every Republican corner.
Except it wasn’t true.
Now, MSNBC and its parent company NBCUniversal are paying a $30 million price tag for peddling fiction as fact. And even more damning? One of the loudest voices calling it out is a Democrat, attorney and Georgia state representative Stacey Evans, who also happens to be a regular MSNBC viewer. Her client? Dr. Mahendra Amin, the man the network falsely branded the “uterus collector.”
Let’s be blunt. MSNBC, led by its flagship voices like Rachel Maddow, ran with a grotesque and completely unsubstantiated accusation that Amin was performing mass, unnecessary hysterectomies on women in ICE custody. Maddow didn’t just report it. She branded it, tying Amin directly to the Trump administration’s immigration policies in a disgusting, politically charged segment that kicked off with references to child separation and menstrual tracking conspiracies. No evidence. No restraint. Just narrative-building at its most repugnant.
But Evans—a liberal, not some right-wing bomb-thrower—called it what it was: reckless and preposterous. According to Evans, NBC had all the information in hand showing the number of hysterectomies was two, both medically approved through ICE protocols. Yet the smear campaign continued. The truth wasn’t politically useful, so it got buried.
Evans said it plainly: “Classic example of following sensationalism as opposed to facts.”
And here’s where it gets even uglier. Discovery revealed that Maddow initially expressed doubt in internal planning meetings about whether the story was legitimate. That lasted all of eight minutes. Soon after, she was running with it as her lead segment—the A-block. No restraint. No second opinion. Just a rush to frame a private immigrant doctor as some sinister cog in the Trump machine.
That’s not journalism. It’s defamation on command.
A federal judge agreed. Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled that a jury could reasonably find actual malice—the legal standard for libel—and noted clearly that there were no mass hysterectomies, no “uterus collection,” and Dr. Amin performed only two, both necessary. The judge also pointed out that multiple claims broadcast by MSNBC were factually false and unsupported by any legitimate investigation.
This wasn’t just media malpractice. It was deliberate narrative engineering, using a man’s livelihood and reputation as political cannon fodder in a hyper-partisan war. And for once, someone is paying the price.
But where is the accountability? NBCUniversal won’t even comment. Maddow hasn’t apologized. And the rest of the media? Dead silent. Imagine if a conservative outlet had falsely painted a liberal immigrant doctor as a butcher for political points. The outrage would be thunderous.
