NBC News’ Kristen Welker has shared what President Donald Trump told her after he stormed out of an interview with her on Meet the Press this past weekend.
“I spoke to him the morning after the interview, and without getting into an exact verbatim of what was said, he effectively said, ‘Look, the rain was disruptive. We’re going to do this again in Washington,’” Welker revealed to Vanity Fair.
The interview, which was filmed last Friday (June 5), took place in a barn in Wisconsin, where Trump was attending an agricultural event. During the interview, rain could be heard pounding on the barn roof. Welker said that Trump claims the rain was the reason for his bad mood.
“I’ve covered President Trump since 2015 when he was a candidate, and it doesn’t faze me at all. It’s part of the conversation. I anticipate it to some extent,” she said of Trump storming out of the interview.
She added, “I try to stay focused on the content of my questions and on getting answers. Because that’s my goal, particularly in a presidential interview, to have that amount of time with a president. My goal is to get answers on behalf of the American people.”
Trump quit the interview around 35-minutes into the discussion after Welker pressed him on his continued unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” in favor of Joe Biden.
The president told Welker, “You’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN, one-sided crooked networks,” before taking off his microphone. “Let’s call it quits, because I’ve had enough… Thank you, darling,” he said.
When Welker pleaded with Trump to stay, telling him she’d “traveled all the way to Wisconsin,” the president responded, “I’ve sat in the rain with you for an hour. On and off in the rain. And I’ve given you enough time.”
Earlier this week, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart mocked the situation, calling Trump a “fragile man-baby” and criticizing Welker for giving air to the president’s claim that it was the “rain” that made him storm off.
“You were inside! There was no challenge from the rain,” Stewart stated. “F*** that! No, Donald Trump was not thrown off by the ambient noise during the interview. In fact, ambient farm rain is the least disruptive noise environment he conducts interviews in.”
The comedian then played a montage of clips of Trump giving interviews in far noisier, chaotic situations, including in front of the churning engines of Air Force One, construction sites, and even the roof of the White House.
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