It’s arguable that among the most frustrating aspects of President Donald Trump’s emergence in U.S. politics, especially during this second term, is the reluctance of news reporters to grow a spine and treat the president like he’s president, holding him accountable for the things he says.
Last week, Trump threw yet another temper tantrum at yet another news reporter, during an interview with Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press. It was easy to get Trump to make a fool of himself and run away like a small child who was just denied a cookie; all she had to do was press him to substantiate his claims with evidence.
During the interview, Trump made baseless claims that the mayoral primary in California is being “rigged,” leaning into the same absurd, simple-minded narrative that Republicans losing as mail-in ballots are counted proves Democrats are cheating — the same thoroughly debunked argument he made regarding the 2020 presidential race, which he is still claiming was rigged as well.
In fact, Trump claimed during the interview that the 2020 election was rigged, the California election is rigged, and that Jan. 6 rioters were allowed into the Capitol by the FBI, which he still doesn’t seem to understand was his own administration’s FBI, not President Joe Biden’s.
Things between Welker and Trump got heated when Welker asked about the Trump administration’s now-defunct anti-weaponization fund, which most people panned as a reparations fund for Jan. 6 criminals.
From the Hill:
WELKER: “Do you think anyone who attacked police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money?”
TRUMP: “I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it, can tell you this: 97% of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, ’cause you had a lot of crooked cops, you had dirty cops. Comey was a dirty cop. A guy like Bolton was a dirty cop.”
WELKER: “But there is no evidence that people who—”
TRUMP: “Wait a minute, you think Comey was a straight cop?”
WELKER: “We had 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.”
TRUMP: “Comey was a dirty cop.”
The conversation continued….
TRUMP: “Listen to me, they had FBI agents ushering them into the building. They had FBI ‘Go into the building.’ Those people are walking around, they’re looking, ‘Oh, isn’t this nice?’ … They were being ushered into the building.”
WELKER: “There’s no evidence of that, sir, there’s no evidence of that.”
TRUMP: “You had a bunch of dirty cops and frankly what they did is weaponization of our government.”
WELKER: “But sir there’s no evidence of that, more than 1000 people pleaded guilty to crimes.”
TRUMP: “You know what you can do, try looking at the tapes one time.”
Throughout the exchange, Welker — who remained about as calm and poised as Gayle King was when R. Kelly was losing his mind in front of her in 2019 — simply pointed out to the president that there is no evidence to substantiate the claims he was making. There is no evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. There is no evidence of an FBI conspiracy to allow Jan. 6 to happen. Speculation is not evidence. Repeating a claim over and over again doesn’t magically create evidence. These are very simple truths that are indisputable. Welker pointed out these truths calmly, while an angry, agitated, overly emotional Trump proved he simply couldn’t handle it.
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this stuff. You know that these elections are rigged,” Trump told Welker, calling the U.S. — the country he seemed to have forgotten he is in charge of — a “third-world country” when it comes to elections.
“Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump continued. “You’re a one-sided, crooked network. Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
Again, all she did was challenge the president to back his claims up with evidence. Not even proof, mind you, just evidence.
This is almost exactly what happened in April, when Norah O’Donnell, host of CBS News’ 60 Minutes, sat down with Trump for an interview and asked him about the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was interrupted by an alleged gunman, who left a manifesto that referred to someone as a rapist and pedophile, without mentioning Trump by name, which didn’t stop the president from angrily shouting “I’m not a pedophile,” and “I’m not a rapist,” while insulting O’Donnell and her network the same way he did Welker.
Again, like Welker, all O’Donnell did was remain completely calm while asking Trump basic questions, point out simple truths, and allow the president to shoot himself in the foot by simply letting Trump be Trump.
It’s not hard. It’s basic journalism. All any reporter has to do is press Trump on the facts that are right in front of us, and tell him to his face when he’s flat-out lying, or, at the very least, saying things for which he has presented no evidence. And if all that comes of the interview is Trump throwing a fit and running away, then that’s ultimately the story: we have elected a coward with the temperament of an infant and the cognitive function of a dementia patient as president of the United States.
But we all already knew that, didn’t we?
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