{"id":721714,"date":"2026-06-07T20:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T20:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721714\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T20:55:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T20:55:15","slug":"unhinged-trump-storms-out-of-nbc-tv-interview-when-pressed-on-false-election-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721714\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unhinged\u2019: Trump storms out of NBC TV interview when pressed on false election claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Miami: A visibly angry Donald Trump stormed out of a major television interview after he was pressed for evidence on a series of sensational and baseless claims, including that American elections are habitually rigged \u201clike a Third-World country\u201d.<\/p>\n

The US president dropped his microphone to the ground and stepped on it as he exited a combative interview with NBC\u2019s Meet the Press \u2013 a long-running political talk show akin to the ABC\u2019s Insiders \u2013 during a trip to Wisconsin last week. The segment aired on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump stormed out of an interview with NBC\u2019s Meet The Press after being pressed for evidence on his false election claims.X <\/p>\n

He used the interview to repeat false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, and to argue that the January 6 rioters were victims of \u201cdirty cops\u201d and wrongly imprisoned.<\/p>\n

NBC host Kristen Welker protested that Trump and his allies had never presented any evidence for those claims which had been accepted by a court of law. Joe Biden won the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to me, there\u2019s tremendous evidence,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThe election was rigged, it was a dirty election and it\u2019s happening again right now in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump was referring to elections for California governor and Los Angeles mayor held on Tuesday, for which the counting is still incomplete.<\/p>\n

Republican Steve Hilton \u2013 Trump\u2019s preferred candidate for governor \u2013 has called for an overhaul of the state\u2019s notoriously slow electoral system, including the grace period for mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n

The Trump-appointed federal US attorney in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has also announced multiple fraud investigations into California\u2019s recent elections with the FBI.<\/p>\n

Welker pressed Trump for evidence that the elections in California were rigged, noting the state had long suffered from slow vote counts, and that Republican candidates were actually performing relatively well.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo they\u2019re not, they\u2019re dropping fast because it\u2019s a rigged election,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s four days, and they\u2019re not even close [to completing the count].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump and Kristen Welker during the interview.X <\/p>\n

Welker responded: \u201cThat\u2019s how they count the votes in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked again whether he had any evidence for his claims, Trump said: \u201cAll I have to do is look, and I listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welker replied: \u201cThat\u2019s not evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Kaitlan<\/a><\/p>\n

The US president then began an extraordinary tirade about the American media being crooked and US elections being systematically rigged.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re either crooked or you\u2019re stupid,\u201d he told Welker. \u201cYou know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they\u2019re rigged.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re like a Third World country. Your elections are crooked, and you\u2019re crooked, and Meet The Press is crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN. You\u2019re one-sided, crooked networks.\u201d<\/p>\n

A visibly agitated Trump signalled to his aides that he wanted to terminate the interview. \u201cLet\u2019s call it quits, \u2019cos I\u2019ve had enough. Thank you darling, have a good time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He then tore off his microphone, dropped it to the ground, and stepped on it.<\/p>\n

Welker protested that she and her team had travelled from Washington DC to Wisconsin to tape the interview. But Trump said he had given her enough time and walked out.<\/p>\n

The incident garnered significant attention in the US. CNN anchor Jake Tapper called it \u201cwild, unhinged stuff\u201d from a president who could not handle being politely challenged on his constant conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

The president spent much of last week asserting without evidence that California\u2019s election results were \u201cphony\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has also repeated lies that the 2020 election was rigged or \u201cstolen\u201d, and vigorously defended people who rioted at the US Capitol on his behalf on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

Trump has continued defending the rioters as he backtracked on a proposed $US1.8 billion compensation fund for victims of so-called government weaponisation under Biden.<\/p>\n

\"AA visibly enraged Trump signalled to his aides that he wanted to terminate the interview. <\/p>\n

The fund was created as part of a settlement between Trump and the Department of Justice after the US president and his family sued the government he runs over a 2019 leak of his tax returns by a tax office contractor.<\/p>\n

But the administration was forced to dump the proposed Anti-Weaponisation Fund after a backlash from some Republicans. Democrats branded it a \u201cslush fund\u201d for Trump\u2019s MAGA allies and \u201cJanuary 6 foot soldiers\u201d.<\/p>\n

During the Meet The Press interview, Trump shrugged when asked whether any of the rioters who attacked US police officers should receive compensation from taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be inclined to say so, but I\u2019d have to see it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponisation. Many of those people should be compensated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike his acting attorney-general Todd Blanche, Trump did not rule out proceeding with the compensation fund in some form. He said he did not know what was going to happen with it but he loved the idea.<\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Koziol<\/a> is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-721714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}