More in the DC media need to be willing to do what Kristen Welker at NBC News did on Sunday – fact-check Donald Trump in an interview in real time.
And if he gets mad at repeated pushback to his lies about the 2020 election and Jan. 6 and storms out of the interview, we need that, too.
“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,” Trump told Welker, cutting short the interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press,” after Welker wouldn’t let him get away with claims that the 2020 election was “rigged,” that he won that election in a “landslide,” that FBI agents were “ushering” Trump supporters into the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Welker did goad Trump into revealing that the reports that he was dropping his push to create a $1.8 billion slush fund for his Jan. 6 army were greatly exaggerated.
“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” Trump said. “Me, personally, I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved. If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”
It was here that Trump fell into one of his weaves about dirty cops, as he tried to justify giving political criminals access to billions in taxpayer dollars.
“I can tell you this: 97 percent 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,” the president said, by way of trying to grasp at straws.
Good get there by Welker.
Let’s hope this isn’t a standalone.
Trump puts himself in front of cameras multiple times per day, but when he’s not falling asleep in front of them, he’s just allowed to riff off the top of his head about whatever nonsense comes to the front of his mind without a single fact-check.
I’ve been saying for 10 years that this needs to stop – that if media outlets are going to assign a camera and a reporter to an event with Trump, they need to expect to be able to ask hard questions and demand actual answers, and if Trump’s handlers won’t agree to those terms ahead of time, then, no cameras, no reporters, no media oxygen for Trump.
The kid gloves approach from our news media is why the country is in Year 10 of our national nightmare.
Now, let’s see how Welker’s bosses at NBC treat her interview, because you know somebody in the White House has already reached out to have her wings clipped.
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Chris Graham
