Trump Says NBC’s Kristen Welker Will Be Reported to FCC Over Endorsement Comments

Moderator and NBC News anchor Kristen Welker is seen during the final presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 22, 2020. Jim Bourg/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that NBC News’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker will be reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Welker had “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 percent for the U.S. Senate, and 98 percent for the U.S. House, recently and over the longterm,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Trump added: “How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves? Results are attached. Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.”

According to a transcript of “Meet the Press,” Welker did not make the comment about “mixed results” on Sunday’s program. Trump did not say in his social media post where he heard the comment.

Welker made the comment during a recent appearance on the NBC 4 Washington local affiliate station, reported Mediaite.

“He’s going to loom large over these midterms,” Welker stated, according to the outlet. “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.”

Graham defeated Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) in the GOP primary last week. Graham won with about 52.4 percent of the vote to Norman’s 47.6 percent.

In his post on social media, Trump said that media outlets are “going out of their way to harass, demean, and libel anything ‘TRUMP’” and that he has a “99% SUCCESS Rate on Endorsements, [and] 100% on Senatorial Endorsements.”

“In actuality, it is, without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics,” the president added. “If it were not, I would be the first to admit it. Darline Graham’s run for the Senate was the biggest story in all of Politics, because she wasn’t expected to win, and then, when I Endorsed her, and she easily won, the story of her Victory was hardly covered by anybody. Likewise, the future Governor of Oklahoma, who was behind in every Poll, I Endorsed him, he won, and the story was barely covered!”

Later, Trump wrote that he hopes that FCC Chair Brendan Carr and other commissioners in the agency will take the media’s coverage of his endorsement record “very seriously.”

NBC did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request for comment Sunday.

A spokesperson for NBC said in a statement provided to media outlets that Welker “is one of the best in the business and we stand by her.”

The comment comes roughly a year after Carr said that ABC host Jimmy Kimmel may have violated federal broadcasting regulations when Kimmel made comments about Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination. ABC suspended Kimmel’s late-night show before he returned to the air around a week later.

And in June of this year, Trump abruptly ended an interview with Welker and said that “Meet the Press” was presenting a one-sided viewpoint.

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