Two words were all it took. President Donald Trump said on August 30, 2026, that he intends to report Kristen Welker, moderator of NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) because she described his record of endorsing candidates as producing “mixed results.”
Trump, 80, laid out his complaint at length on Truth Social, ridiculing both Welker and her program. The figures he cited for his recent endorsements were 100 percent in U.S. Senate races and 98 percent in U.S. House races, with an overall rate of 99 percent appearing elsewhere in the same post. How, he then asked, could anyone broadcasting on public airwaves be permitted to claim otherwise? “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,” he wrote. A danger to the country was how he characterized it, and he said he hoped FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and the other commissioners would treat it seriously.
What Welker Actually Said
Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press” never carried the comment. 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 full broadcast said the same thing, with one writing, “I just finished watching the entire program. The subject never came up! Kristen said nothing of the sort! Trump is deranged.” The remark instead came in a live appearance on NBC 4 Washington ahead of Sunday’s broadcast. “He’s going to loom large over these midterms,” Welker told the NBC affiliate. A slate of candidates in the primaries had carried Trump’s endorsement, she went on to note, and some mixed results had followed. The example she reached for next was his latest pick: Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose narrow defeat of Rep. Ralph Norman in the August 25 primary runoff now sets her against Dr. Annie Andrews. That was a Trump endorsement win 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. Several interviews have brought the two of them face to face over the last two years, a stretch in which Trump has also attacked her repeatedly.
The Numbers Behind the Endorsement Fight
By one measure, the president has done well in this year’s Republican primaries. Ballotpedia figures, as relayed in news accounts, credited him with roughly 313 endorsements and a 96 percent success rate as of mid-August. A separate review of Ballotpedia data published September 1 put the figure at 95.7 percent when state and local races such as governor are included. Plenty of those contests, however, were never close, and a number of his choices ran unopposed. This cycle has also produced more than a dozen losses among his endorsed candidates, and six Trump-endorsed contenders for House seats and governorships were counted by NBC’s own election desk as defeated in primaries earlier this month. Other outlets have likewise characterized his recent record as mixed.
Among the losses this cycle: Lisa Demuth’s defeat of Mike Lindell in Minnesota’s Republican race for governor on August 11, and challenger Charlie Hatcher’s ouster of Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., in his August 6 reelection primary. Earlier in the year, Zach Lahn took Iowa’s Republican gubernatorial primary from Rep. Randy Feenstra on June 2, and Rick Jackson beat Burt Jones in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial runoff on June 16. A review published September 1 counted Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial nominee Rep. Tom Tiffany and Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate John James among the Trump-endorsed winners, while his losing gubernatorial picks included South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, alongside Jones and Lindell. Coverage of Graham’s victory was almost nonexistent, Trump also grumbled in his post — though national outlets and news organizations across South Carolina had in fact given her runoff wide attention. Mike Mazzei, his pick in the Oklahoma governor’s race, drew the identical complaint from him.
Sunday’s targets did not stop with Welker. A separate message written entirely in capital letters went after what Trump termed fake polls, insisted something needed to be done about them and declared that the FCC should come to the rescue. For days now, the endorsement arithmetic has bothered him. HBO’s “Real Time” aired an episode Friday in which host Bill Maher said the president had personally texted him charts disputing the host’s on-air assertion 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
The threat lands while the agency is fighting a court case of its own. ABC’s corporate parent, Disney, sued the FCC on First Amendment grounds on August 18. Retaliation for the network’s news coverage and other content was what the agency’s regulatory moves amounted to, the suit argued. In April 2026, days after Trump demanded that comedian Jimmy Kimmel be fired, an unusual challenge to ABC’s local station licenses came from Carr, who directed 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, not the Kimmel episode, drove the move, Carr has insisted. ABC’s bid for a temporary restraining order was not fast-tracked by U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, who set a hearing for the week of October 5.
Carr, a Trump appointee, has moved quickly before when the president complained about broadcasters. He issued threats to broadcasters in March 2026 over their coverage of the Iran war, after Trump aired a similar grievance on Truth Social. Comcast, NBC’s parent company, has been the subject of an inquiry by Carr since February 2025 into what he called invidious forms of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) discrimination. Former commission officials from both parties say he is weaponizing the agency and chilling free speech.
The commission’s own guidance says it “is barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view,” and while anyone can file a complaint, the consumer complaint center offers no complaint category covering objections to a news report. His messages amounted to his clearest attempt so far to steer the agency toward acting on his behalf, despite its limited authority over news content.
Johanna Dunaway, a Syracuse University political science professor, told USA TODAY on August 31 that the president is unlikely to get Welker reprimanded. “I just don’t see how they can, at least in good faith. Several other outlets made similar statements about his endorsements and recent upsets in primaries,” she said, adding that “characterizing his record on recent endorsements as ‘mixed’ is neither inaccurate nor malicious.”
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.
Actress Lisa Rinna sided with Welker on September 1, reposting 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, and as of Tuesday neither Carr nor the commission had responded publicly. Should one ever be lodged, NBC’s answer would be short. Welker never claimed that most of Trump’s picks lose — only that his results have been mixed, a description the network’s own election coverage backs up.