The ‘crooked’ charge against NBC: Why the Donald Trump-Kristen Welker slugfest went off the rails
The headlines say Donald Trump "stormed" out of his interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker.
The reality was a little more subtle.
It’s easy to second-guess. The natural tension that comes with interviewing any politician for television – but especially this president, who can dominate this kind of sit-down – calls for split-second judgments.
Having interviewed Trump numerous times – especially in a high-stakes session two weeks before the election, at his invitation – gives me a certain perspective.
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Things did not end well with Welker:
"You’re crooked, your press is crooked, And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked."
"To be fair, I’m not crooked."
"Really? Well, you play right into their hands then. You’re either crooked or you’re stupid."
Geez.
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And then: "Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time."
I’m pretty sure Trump has never called me darling. He does seem to treat certain women differently.
The other day he ripped CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for asking a question, saying she’s "beautiful" but he never sees her smile and that she has "hatred in her eyes." Even in the Welker interview, Trump said ABC, CBS and CNN were also crooked.
It’s close to a no-win situation. You prepare a bunch of blue cards, knowing you won’t get to everything. No matter how wide-ranging the interview, armchair critics will whack you:
"Yeah, why didn’t you ask that?"
My approach is that you’ve got to let the guest speak, but jump in when it’s becoming what senators call a filibuster. And do some real-time fact-checking when you can.
Where Welker fell into a trap, in my view, is that she interrupted Trump so often that it looked like she was debating him.
Now there were times when Welker’s persistence paid off. When she asked about the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" that even Republican members of Congress are denouncing, there was this exchange.
WELKER: Just to be very clear, are you backing off the fund completely, as your acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said, or are you looking for another avenue to revive the fund?
TRUMP: So let me explain what the fund is. People have been hurt so badly by radical left lunatics that worked for the Biden administration and Sleepy Joe. They’re vicious.
They’re violent, what they did to people. And, of course, they went after me more than anybody else. They raided Mar-a-Lago and all the other things. But people have been badly hurt. They’ve committed suicide. They’ve lost their jobs. They've lost their families.
They’ve lost their wives. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost everything over a fake weaponization of government. Now, let me just tell you—"
WELKER: So are you looking for a way to revive it?
TRUMP: I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it. I can tell you this: 97% of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, cause you had a lot of crooked cops, you had dirty cops. Comey was a dirty cop. A guy like Bolton was a dirty cop."
WELKER: But there is no evidence that people who—"
TRUMP: Wait a minute. You think Comey was a straight cop?
WELKER: We had 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.
TRUMP: Comey was a dirty cop.
"But the people who assaulted police officers," Welker shot back.
"I don’t know what’s going to happen with the weaponization fund. I love the idea, because people like you, the fake dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he’s not smart enough to know what’s going on, but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people. They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong."
Welker interjected again. "Just to be very clear, there’s no evidence of what you’re saying."
"There’s a lot of evidence. Listen to me… There’s tremendous evidence. There’s nothing but evidence."
"Well, it’s not been presented in a court of law."
"The election was rigged," Trump proclaimed. "It was a dirty election. And it’s happening again right now in California."
"Do you have evidence to support that?"
"All I have to do is look."
"But that’s not evidence."
"Well, it’s not been presented in a court of law," Welker said.
"The election was rigged," Trump declared.
"There’s no evidence of that, sir."
It’s as if she worried about media criticism that she was somehow going easy on him if she wasn’t seen challenging him every few seconds.
But here’s where the final six minutes became an interrupt-a-thon.
WELKER: All right, this is, just to be very clear, there’s no evidence of what you’re saying, but let me ask about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: There’s a lot of evidence.
WELKER: Let me ask about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: Listen — listen to me — listen to me.
WELKER: Let’s talk about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: There’s tremendous evidence. There’s nothing but evidence.
WELKER: Well, it’s not been presented in a court of law.
TRUMP: The election was rigged. It was a dirty election.
WELKER: Mr. President –
TRUMP: And it’s happening again right now in California.
WELKER: — you’ve never presented evidence –
My view is that the viewers are smart. They know when a guest is ducking the question or changing the subject–heavily influenced, of course, by partisan loyalties. You don’t have to keep pounding it into them. Welker could have explained this to viewers after the taping.
One last bit of perspective.
By the time that last segment went off the rails, the president and the moderator had talked in a Wisconsin barn for roughly an hour, about Iran, nuclear issues, the economy, gas prices, struggling farmers and more. He had given her plenty of time. They were interrupted by rain.
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Welker asked about his campaign pledge to end foreign wars.
"I didn’t guarantee no war," Trump insisted. "Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?"
There are several examples from the 2024 campaign. At an August rally in Pennsylvania that year, for instance, the candidate said: "Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all." Again, that could have been added in an on-camera tag.
One thing is certain: Kristen Welker’s interview made plenty of news, so that should make her and her network rather happy.