Trump Storms Off 'Meet the Press' Set, Ripping Welker as 'Crooked' After Fact-Check Clash
The president yanked off his microphone and ended the interview when host Kristen Welker pressed him for evidence behind his election-fraud claims and his $1.8 billion 'anti-weaponization' fund.
President Donald Trump abruptly walked out of an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" after a tense exchange with host Kristen Welker, telling her on the way out, "You're a one-sided crooked network. Let's call it quits because I've had enough." The interview, taped Friday in Wisconsin and aired Sunday morning, dissolved into open hostility as Welker repeatedly pressed Trump to back up claims he could not substantiate.
The breaking point came as Welker pushed Trump on his insistence that the 2024 and subsequent elections had been marred by fraud, and on his determination to move ahead with a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund intended to compensate people the president says were persecuted by the federal government — including those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. When Trump asserted that FBI agents had been "ushering them into the building" that day, Welker pushed back sharply, telling him there was "no evidence of that."
Trump grew visibly irritated as Welker declined to move on and instead asked again for proof. "I sat in the rain with you for an hour. On and off in the rain," he told her, complaining he had already given the network more than enough of his time. Moments later he pulled the microphone from his lapel and left the set, ending the conversation while cameras were still rolling.
Beyond Welker and NBC, Trump used the appearance to lash out at other major networks, dismissing ABC, CBS and CNN as "crooked" and casting mainstream coverage of his administration as uniformly unfair. The segment had been billed as a wide-ranging sit-down covering the economy, the war with Iran and the administration's path to a ceasefire, and portions of that conversation did air before the blowup.
The walkout instantly became one of the most-discussed political moments of the weekend, drawing coverage from outlets across the spectrum, from Fox News and CNBC to The Washington Post and Variety. It marked a striking escalation in Trump's long-running feud with the White House press corps and underscored how combative his exchanges with mainstream interviewers have become in his second term. NBC aired the full episode, including the moment Trump left, and Welker noted on air that the network had repeatedly sought to give the president room to substantiate his assertions before the interview collapsed.
Originally reported by CNBC.