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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After a tense "Meet the Press" interview that ended about as warmly as a frozen turkey in January, President Donald Trump announced that NBC host Kristen Welker would be reported to the Federal Communications Commission for the grave journalistic crime of describing a 100 percent Senate endorsement record and a 98 percent House endorsement record as "mixed results."
Trump said the remark was not merely sloppy. It was, in his telling, a purposeful assault on the public airwaves themselves.
"Kristen Welker, the Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press, now considered Meet the Fake Press, just stated that Donald Trump has ‘mixed results’ on his Endorsements of Candidates, when the recent WINS of Darline Graham and Mike Mazzei, stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate, and 98% for the U.S. House, recently and over the longterm," Trump posted on Truth Social.
"How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves? Results are attached," Trump continued. "Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment. Unfortunately, she is not the only one."
Media mathematicians immediately sprang into action. According to sources inside several newsrooms, a batting average of .980 is now officially categorized as "a little up and down," "kind of a wash," and "not that impressive if you really think about it." One producer explained that if a quarterback completed 98 of 100 passes, the responsible thing would be to lead with the two incompletions and then ask whether the sport of football even works anymore.
NBC News stood by its host with the kind of institutional loyalty usually reserved for a beloved intern who just set the building on fire. "Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her," an NBC News spokesperson said.
The remark that triggered the federal complaint did not even occur during Sunday's "Meet the Press" broadcast. Welker offered it earlier that morning on NBC4 Washington, where she predicted Trump would dominate the midterms and then described his endorsement slate as mixed, before citing the Graham win in the next breath. "He’s going to loom large over these midterms. There's no doubt about that. He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He's had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham, of course, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was successful in her primary battle, so now she takes on Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina," Welker said.
CNN chief media ANALyst Brian Stelter warned that asking a regulator to notice a journalist's wording was a dangerous new chapter in American life, one in which presidents might someday object to being described as losing when they are, inconveniently, winning.
"Trump is getting more explicit about weaponizing the FCC. This morning he said @kwelkernbc will be ‘reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment’ for saying something he didn’t like about his endorsement record. (By law, the FCC can’t punish Welker.) And that’s not all..." Stelter posted to X.
A Fox News Trump Primary Endorsement Tracker published Thursday found Trump-backed candidates had won all 24 Republican Senate primaries in which he endorsed and 214 of 218 House primaries, producing a 100 percent Senate success rate and a roughly 98 percent House rate. The two victories Trump highlighted came Tuesday. Graham defeated Rep. Ralph Norman in South Carolina’s Senate runoff, while former state Sen. Mike Mazzei defeated Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond by approximately 2,000 votes for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
The same tracker recorded victories for 16 of Trump's 21 gubernatorial picks. His five defeated candidates included Pamela Evette in South Carolina, Mike Lindell in Minnesota and Megan Degenfelder in Wyoming, a combined record that newsrooms treated as proof the era of MAGA dominance was over, hanging by a thread, and also somehow still looming large.
Trump accused news organizations of mining the handful of losses in order to recast a historically lopsided record as a coin flip. "Their new weapon is to say that my 99% SUCCESS Rate on Endorsements, 100% on Senatorial Endorsements (Many of whom were not even given a shot of winning until I Endorsed!), is either a mixed result, or not very good. In actuality, it is, without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics," Trump said.
He closed by appealing directly to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, the one man in Washington still expected to treat a 98 percent win rate as something other than a tragedy."The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously," Trump said.
Carr has previously warned broadcasters that news distortion could affect license renewals. The FCC, however, licenses individual stations rather than networks such as NBC, and its published policy requires evidence that a report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers [which it obviously was designed to do], distinguishing deliberate distortion from an inaccuracy or a difference of opinion.
Newsroom sources said they were already preparing the next day's coverage, in which a 100 percent Senate record would be described as "complicated," a 98 percent House record as "uneven," and the remaining 2 percent as the only number that still counts.
Can anyone seriously believe the media anymore?
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