NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker summed up President Donald Trump’s record of endorsing candidates in two words — “mixed results” — and on August 30, 2026, the president said he would report her to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over them.
In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump, 80, mocked Welker and her program. U.S. Senate races, by his accounting, had delivered him a 100 percent endorsement record lately, with U.S. House races at 98 percent; elsewhere in the same post he put his overall rate at 99 percent. He then demanded to know how anyone broadcasting on public airwaves could be permitted to claim otherwise. “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,” he wrote. He said he hoped FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and the other commissioners would take seriously what he described as a danger to the country.
What Welker Actually Said
The remark never aired on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.” Journalist Aaron Rupar posted on X on August 30: “Notably, Kristen Welker did not say this on today’s Meet the Press.” Viewers who sat through the whole show said the same, one of them writing, “I just finished watching the entire program. The subject never came up! Kristen said nothing of the sort! Trump is deranged.”
Welker’s comments came instead during a live appearance on NBC 4 Washington ahead of Sunday’s broadcast. “He’s going to loom large over these midterms,” she told the NBC affiliate. A slate of primary candidates had carried Trump’s endorsement, she added, and the results had been somewhat mixed. She then named his latest pick, Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. In her August 25 primary runoff, Graham edged out Rep. Ralph Norman by a narrow margin; her opponent now is Dr. Annie Andrews. That was a win for a Trump endorsement, and one Welker volunteered herself, in the same breath as the phrase he objected to.
“Kristen is one of the best in the business, and we stand by her,” NBC News said. She has moderated “Meet the Press” since September 2023, and Trump has attacked her repeatedly over the last two years, even as he has also sat down with her for several interviews.
The Numbers Behind the Endorsement Fight
Trump has in fact won most of the Republican primaries he weighed into this year. As of mid-August, news accounts citing Ballotpedia put him at roughly 313 endorsements with a 96 percent success rate. Plenty of those contests, though, were never competitive, and a number of his choices ran unopposed. More than a dozen of his endorsees have gone down to defeat this cycle, and NBC’s own election desk tallied six Trump-endorsed contenders for House seats and governorships beaten in primaries earlier this month. His recent record has drawn the same “mixed” label from other outlets.
Among the losses this cycle: Lisa Demuth beat Mike Lindell in Minnesota’s Republican race for governor on August 11, and challenger Charlie Hatcher ousted Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., in his August 6 reelection primary. Zach Lahn took Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial primary from Rep. Randy Feenstra on June 2 earlier in the year, and Rick Jackson beat Burt Jones in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial runoff on June 16. Trump’s post also grumbled that Graham’s victory received almost no coverage, even though national outlets and media throughout South Carolina covered her runoff widely. Mike Mazzei, his pick in the Oklahoma governor’s race, drew the identical grievance from him.
Sunday brought other targets besides Welker. A separate message, written entirely in capital letters, went after what he termed fake polls, insisted something needed to be done about them and proclaimed the FCC the body that should come to the rescue.
Carr returned to that theme in a September 6 appearance on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing,” saying broadcasters could face consequences over their polling coverage. “There’s a lot of interest right now in fake polls that are out there. The FCC may put guidance out soon to remind broadcasters about their obligations with effect to not airing fake polls, particularly if they’re done to suppress people heading into the fall,” he said. He gave no details on how the FCC would define “fake polls.”
The endorsement arithmetic has bothered Trump for days. Bill Maher, hosting Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time,” recounted that the president had texted him charts himself, contesting the host’s on-air claim that Trump is losing nearly all of his endorsement races. Maher said he had “overstated it” and that the full picture was “a little more nuanced,” then quipped: “Now, stop texting.”
Carr’s FCC Already Facing a Lawsuit
A court case of the FCC’s own is unfolding as the threat lands. Disney, ABC’s corporate parent, sued the agency on First Amendment grounds on August 18, 2026, arguing that its regulatory moves amounted to retaliation for the network’s news coverage and other content. Carr, in April 2026 and days after Trump demanded that comedian Jimmy Kimmel be fired, mounted an unusual challenge to ABC’s local station licenses, directing the network’s eight owned stations to submit their broadcast licenses for early renewal review years ahead of schedule. His inquiry into Disney’s diversity practices drove the move, Carr has insisted, and not the Kimmel episode. A hearing for the week of October 5 was set by U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, who declined to fast-track ABC’s bid for a temporary restraining order.
Swift action has come from Carr, a Trump appointee, on past occasions when the president complained about broadcasters. Threats to broadcasters over their coverage of the Iran war came from him in March 2026, after Trump aired a similar grievance on Truth Social. Comcast, NBC’s parent company, has sat under an inquiry by Carr since February 2025 into what he called invidious forms of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) discrimination. Officials who formerly served at the commission, from both parties, say he is weaponizing the agency and chilling free speech.
Asked on the September 6 Fox News appearance by host Peter Doocy, “He said he was going to report Kristen Welker to the FCC for rebuke or punishment. You are the FCC; have you received this report?”, Carr did not answer yes or no, telling Doocy: “President Trump is over the target. We’re looking at a lot of actions.”
Carr also told Doocy: “One thing that President Trump gets, fundamentally, is that broadcast TV is completely different than other forms of distribution, including cable. So many broadcasters right now, they want to break the deal that they cut with the American people. They get billions of dollars in taxpayer (money) — effectively subsidize distribution. What they’re supposed to do in exchange is operate in the public interest, not some sort of narrow partisan interest.”
The commission’s own guidance says it “is barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view.” Anyone can file a complaint, yet the consumer complaint center lists no complaint category covering objections to a news report. His messages stand as Trump’s clearest attempt so far to steer the agency toward acting on his behalf, despite its limited authority over news content.
Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, pushed back, writing that “the FCC has no authority to punish journalists this administration doesn’t like” and calling such threats to press freedom dangerous.
Welker drew public support from actress Lisa Rinna on September 1, who reposted on X a message by X user Heather Delaney Reese that read: “Fascism spreads by turning our own institutions against us. It happens when a man with the full power of the presidency tells a journalist she will be ‘reported for rebuke or punishment’ because she stated a FACT he did not like, and then warns every other journalist in the country that they could be next.”
No complaint has been confirmed filed. Should one ever be lodged, NBC could answer briefly: most of Trump’s picks lose was never Welker’s claim. She said only that his results have been mixed — a description the network’s own election coverage backs up.
