{"id":831443,"date":"2026-08-31T02:26:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T02:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/831443\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T02:26:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T02:26:25","slug":"trump-says-nbcs-kristen-welker-should-face-punishment-from-fcc-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/831443\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says NBC\u2019s Kristen \u200cWelker should face \u2018punishment\u2019 from FCC | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> \u2060on Sunday said NBC<\/a>\u2019s Kristen \u200cWelker \u2013 host of Meet the Press \u2013 should face \u201crebuke or punishment\u201d from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).<\/p>\n

Welker, during a live segment for a local Washington, DC, affiliate, described the success record of political candidates whom the president had endorsed as \u201cmixed\u201d. The segment aired prior to Sunday\u2019s edition of Meet the Press.<\/p>\n

Trump \u201cis going to loom large over these midterms,\u201d Welker remarked on that live shot. \u201cHe, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He\u2019s had some mixed results.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Welker went on to mention Trump\u2019s endorsement of appointed interim US senator Darline Graham, sister of her late predecessor Lindsey Graham, who was successful in her primary battle.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the president then took verbal aim at Welker with a social media post deriding her as the \u201cUnpopular \u2018Hostess\u2019 of \u2026 Meet the Fake Press,\u201d accused her of \u201cpurposeful inaccuracy\u201d and warned that she would \u201cbe reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment\u201d.<\/p>\n

The post also said that Trump hoped his appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr \u2013 and Carr\u2019s colleagues on the commission \u2013 \u201ctake this Threat to our Country very seriously\u201d.<\/p>\n

Once Meet the Press actually started on Sunday, a guest analyst on the show said<\/a> \u201cthe single most important factor in who the Republican nominee will be in [the presidential election of] 2028 will be who Donald Trump endorses\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump is estimated to have made more than 300 endorsements that resulted in the recipient winning. In the election cycle leading up to November\u2019s midterms, 214 of the 218 House candidates he endorsed winning their primaries, including all 24 Republican senate primaries.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in gubernatorial primaries, five of the 21 candidates he endorsed lost their primaries, among them Mike Lindell \u2013 who finished a distant second in Minnesota to state house speaker Lisa Demuth.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s supreme court on Saturday effectively confirmed Lindell\u2019s 11-percentage-point defeat by rejecting his bid for a recount.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Endorsements are stronger than ever,\u201d Trump nonetheless maintained<\/a> in a 23 August social media post. \u201cThere has never been anything close!\u201d<\/p>\n

When taking aim at Welker on Sunday, beside touting Darline Graham\u2019s victory, he mentioned Oklahoma gubernatorial hopeful Mike Mazzei\u2019s Republican primary win.<\/p>\n

He had said days earlier that any of his endorsed candidates who lost were already faced with \u201cimpossible\u201d races \u2013 but they had earned his support \u201cout of loyalty\u201d.<\/p>\n

How much power Trump\u2019s endorsement carries has been a touchy issue for the president. On Friday, HBO Max talkshow host Bill Maher apologized to Trump for claiming that the president is winning \u201calmost none of\u201d his endorsements. Trump had sent Maher statistics making the president\u2019s case that the talkshow host was wrong.<\/p>\n

Welker and Trump have a contentious relationship. In June, he walked<\/a> out of an hour-long interview with the host after being asked, among other unpleasant topics for him, about having pledged \u201cno new wars\u201d during his successful run for a second presidency.<\/p>\n

He started war in Iran in late February alongside Israel, and Trump denied guaranteeing there would no wars if he were returned to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a one-sided crooked network,\u201d Trump said at the time. \u201cLet\u2019s call it quits because I\u2019ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cYou ought to straighten out your press. A country can never be great with a dishonest press.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBC on Sunday issued a statement saying: \u201cKristen is one of the best in the business, and we stand by her.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBC News on 19 August had published an article examining Trump\u2019s endorsement record,<\/a> saying in the story\u2019s headline that the president\u2019s \u201cendorsement record takes a hit at the end of primary season\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments on Sunday about Welker were only the latest instance of him or his administration seeking to bring the weight of the FCC down on media outlets with whom he has become cross.<\/p>\n

In September 2025, Carr \u2013 appointed by Trump \u2013 reportedly put pressure on television station groups to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s show as punishment for a comment that the ABC host, a frequent critic of the president, made in the wake of the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Two conservative-friendly broadcast groups, Sinclair and Nexstar, did so<\/a>. And ABC opted to \u201cindefinitely\u201d pull<\/a> Kimmel\u2019s show before he ultimately returned to the air a week later.<\/p>\n

Trump has also won private settlements from ABC and CBS totaling more than $30m during his second presidency.<\/p>\n

Earlier in August, ABC sued the FCC<\/a>, arguing that it was being illegally targeted by the regulator after being forced to apply early to renew its eight local broadcast licenses. Among Republicans\u2019 complaints about ABC are that its candidates are not given equal airtime on the daytime talkshow The View.<\/p>\n

\u201cActing through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,\u201d the network said in its lawsuit.<\/p>\n

NBC is licensed by the FCC to directly operate 11 local stations.<\/p>\n

Involving itself in broadcast outlets\u2019 editorial decisions and constitutionally protected speech is beyond the mandate of the FCC, which was established in 1934.<\/p>\n

CNN media reporter and commentator Brian Stelter, who on Sunday first found the clip of Welker mentioning Trump\u2019s \u201cmixed record\u201d, wrote<\/a> that the FCC \u201ccan\u2019t punish Welker\u201d because it has \u201climited power \u2026 by design\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Stelter noted that Carr has been \u201cresponsive\u201d to Trump in the past \u2013 and \u201cit\u2019s reasonable to think NBC will be targeted next\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump \u2060on Sunday said NBC\u2019s Kristen \u200cWelker \u2013 host of Meet the Press \u2013 should face \u201crebuke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-831443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}