Nation's Journalists Confirm 98 Percent Win Rate in Trump Administration Qualifies As Mixed Results

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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Sunny Hostin complains about Lindsey Graham's sister taking his position, but you will not believe why

The View remains the place where daytime television goes to remind everyone that ignorance and self-righteousness make a perfect pair. This time the panel turned its mighty intellect to the news that South Carolina had appointed Darline Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, to finish out his term. 

Sunny Hostin, whose given name is evidently an oxymoron, found the whole arrangement deeply offensive to the cause of womanhood. The ladies then proceeded to demonstrate, once again, that they have no idea what the words they throw around actually mean.

Here is how the discussion unfolded:

SUNNY HOSTIN: I don't love it. I don't love it. You know, she'll be the first woman to be a U.S. senator in South Carolina in the history of the state. And I think that that's just fundamentally wrong that South Carolina just couldn't elect a woman and this is the only way that it was done.I think the experience does matter. And while she is a certified optician and while she has done great work in that field, I don't think that she should be representing the people of South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. I just don't. [Sunny would rather a Democrat woman be the first woman senator in the state.]

JOY BEHAR: Is this the very definition of a DEI? [Actually, it isn't. It might be considered nepotism, but D.E.I. is a horse of a different color, and the ladies of "The View" should be familiar with horses.]

SUNNY HOSTIN: Correct! Correct! It's everything that the Republican Party stands against! Everything! Everything! It's DEI. Nepotism. All these things thrown in together. And, you know, at this very same time Pete Hegseth blocked more promotions for women in particular for women of color to become admirals. And so this is happening. I feel like our government is fundamentally broken and I just disagree. I disagree with this. [And Darline is a Republican.]

BEHAR: I agree with you. It's not like taking over your mother's job at McDonald's.

HOSTIN: Yeah, it's not.

BEHAR: You're running

HOSTIN: It's the U.S. Senate.BEHAR: You're in government. You have to know what you're doing.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: You guys are putting too much stock in who's currently in Congress.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yeah, you got a point. 

Hostin also invoked the solemn testimony of Steve Schmidt to establish that Lindsey Graham had been a bad man all along. On "The View" this counts as serious evidence. 

The panel nodded along as though Schmidt were some neutral historian rather than the usual angry Never-Trumper whose opinions happen to match the room. What the ladies managed to miss, as they always do, is that none of this qualifies as DEI, as I mentioned above. 

DEI is the practice of handing out positions according to race and sex checkboxes while pretending merit is still in the room. Filling a vacant Senate seat with a family member is simply how representative government has worked for most of its history. Brothers, sons, widows, and sisters have stepped in when needed. The republic did not collapse the first dozen times it happened and it is unlikely to collapse now.

The real offense, apparently, is that South Carolina chose continuity over the approved method of holding a special election just so a woman could be elected the approved way. That this woman happens to be the sister of the man who held the seat is treated as some novel scandal rather than the ordinary business of politics. 

The panel then used a Strawman argument and compared the situation to blocking promotions in the military, as though one has anything to do with the other. The geniuses concluded that the government itself is broken [whatever that actually means] because Republicans refuse to play the identity game on command.

It was the usual performance: loud, empty, and entirely untroubled by either history or logic. The ladies of "The View" once again proved that when you start with the conclusion that everything conservatives do is wicked, the facts can be arranged to fit afterward. 

No actual thinking is required and this is what they excel in.

What do you think? I know it's controversial, but it's only temporary if Ms. Graham doesn't win in November's midterm elections.

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