New York [US], June 13: Kristen Welker is getting candid about her latest interview with Donald Trump.
The NBC journalist explained what happened during her Meet the Press interview with the president, and what he told her the morning after he stormed out mid-conversation. Welker has covered Trump since 2015, when he was a candidate for the 2016 election, and moderated a 2020 debate between him and Joe Biden.
"I spoke to him the morning after the interview, and without getting into an exact verbatim of what was said, he effectively said, 'Look, the rain was disruptive. We're going to do this again in Washington,'" Welker told Vanity Fair.
The White House did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.
Things became particularly heated when Welker brought up the 2020 election, which Trump has falsely and repeatedly claimed was rigged. Trump lost both the popular vote and the electoral college vote to Biden.
"You've never presented evidence that the 2020 election was rigged," Welker said. She then asked the president to provide evidence backing up his claim. "All I have to do is look," he replied. Welker countered, "But that's not evidence," again pushing for Trump to provide evidence that the election was rigged.
When Welker attempted to move their conversation away from the 2020 election, Trump stayed on the subject. "You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. Do you know that I won an election in a landslide and I got 94 percent bad press," he said.
"You know why I got that? Because you have no credibility. Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. You're a one-sided crooked network." Welker tried again to get Trump back on track, but the president removed his microphone.
"Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time," he said, standing up and walking off camera.
When reflecting on the interview, Welker said she thought it was important to press Trump on the 2020 election claims. "There's never been any evidence presented of that despite the 60-plus court cases that ultimately were dismissed. And then of course this latest allegation of fraud in California; there's just no evidence," she told Vanity Fair.
"This is how they count their votes. You can debate whether or not it's an effective and efficient way of counting votes, but the bottom line is there's just no evidence that there's been any fraud."
Added Welker, "I think the media does have a responsibility to press him on these allegations of election fraud for which there's never been any evidence presented, and in fact, the election was deemed to be the safest and most secure election by the election officials who were serving at that time.
"And so as journalists, we have a responsibility to press elected officials, whether it's the president, whether it's a member of Congress, on the facts. And that's simply what I was doing."
Watch the full Meet the Press Interview between Kristen Welker and Donald Trump below.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
