Once again, President Donald Trump is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to do something that it does not have the authority to do. And why? Because he’s angry about something a journalist said on television.
Prior to the airing of Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC, moderator Kristen Welker spoke with WRC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C.
Welker pointed out that Trump is “going to loom large” over the upcoming midterm elections. Then she accurately noted, “He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He’s had some mixed results.”
Welker continued: “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.”
So, overall, a fair analysis.
But Trump lost his cool.
He took to his Truth Social and blasted Welker. In a lengthy post, he called her the “unpopular ‘hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press now considered Meet the Fake Press.”
Trump clearly was upset by Welker’s “mixed results” characterization. Trump wrote, “How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?”
He then wrote, “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.”
He later wrote, “The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously. Thank you for your attention to this very important matter of Fake Polls and Commentary!”
In another post, Trump wrote, “THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA ARE OUT OF CONTROL, AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT. FCC TO THE RESCUE!”
CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “The posts were Trump’s most explicit efforts yet to direct the FCC to carry out his wishes.”
Now, let’s be clear, the FCC does not have the authority to punish Welker or NBC over what she said.
Stelter wrote, “The FCC has limited power over issues like this, and its own website states the agency ‘cannot prevent the broadcast of any particular point of view,’ so the notion of ‘punishment’ for Welker … would historically be a nonstarter.”
Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner on the FCC, tweeted, “As I’ve said many times, the FCC has no authority to punish journalists this administration doesn’t like. These threats to press freedom are dangerous. They undermine the foundation of our democracy, and they have no place in it.”
And therein lies the issue. Trump’s threats undermine our democracy. And, more concerning, Carr seems to react to Trump’s complaints.
As Stelter noted, “(Carr) has taken aggressive action against some FCC licensees, particularly ABC, whose parent company, Disney, filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the commission earlier this month. In March, Carr issued a threat to broadcasters over their coverage of the Iran war after the president made a similar complaint on Truth Social. In April, the FCC chair initiated an unusual challenge to ABC’s local station licenses, one day after Trump called for comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s firing.
Carr justified the widely criticized action by citing his probe of Disney’s diversity practices. He similarly has an open investigation into NBC’s parent company, Comcast, over what he has called “invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”
And this part should be emphasized as well: What Welker said about Trump’s endorsements having mixed results was true. Trump just didn’t like it.
The Washington Post’s Mariana Alfaro wrote, “Other major candidates in competitive primaries who won with a Trump endorsement include Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the state’s GOP Senate primary, and Julia Letlow, who defeated Sen. Bill Cassidy in the Louisiana GOP primary for the Senate seat. Some candidates Trump endorsed lost their primaries. Among them were GOP gubernatorial candidates Burt Jones in Georgia and Randy Feenstra in Iowa, and Rep. Cory Mills (R-Florida), who was seeking reelection.”
David Axelrod, the senior political commentator and chief political analyst for CNN, tweeted, “This is absolute lunacy. The idea that the FCC should ‘rebuke’ broadcasters for noting the mixed results of candidates @POTUS has endorsed lately, or news orgs for polls reflecting his lagging #s, is pure harassment. He’s losin’ it, folks!”
This isn’t the first time Trump has had a problem with Welker. In June, Trump walked out of an interview with Welker after she pressed him for evidence of his claims that elections in California were “rigged.”
At the time, Trump said, “All I have to do is look, and I listen.”
Welker said, “That’s not evidence.”
Then Trump said the media was “crooked” and added, “Sorry, let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough.”
He then said, “You ought to straighten out your press. A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”
On Sunday, after Trump’s latest attack, NBC put out a statement defending Welker, saying, “Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her.”
President Donald Trump, shown here at an event in Houston on Friday. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Welker wasn’t the only journalist Trump went after over the weekend. He also slammed New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Haberman was one of four Times reporters on an Aug. 27 story that said, “President Trump is not planning to attend a ceremony in Manhattan for the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, in part because he wanted to deliver a speech and the annual event has long barred remarks, according to four people with knowledge of the events.”
In a lengthy Truth Social post on Friday, Trump personally attacked Haberman, saying she was “an unattractive person both inside and out” and calling her a “SCAMMER,” “PHONY” and “stalker,” among other insults.
The Daily Beast called the attacks “vile,” and CNN’s Jake Tapper called them “disgusting and beneath the office.”
Haberman is widely respected in the journalism world for her work covering the White House. She and Times colleague Jonathan Swan recently published a book about Trump called “Regime Change,” which hit No. 1 on the Times’ nonfiction bestseller list.
It’s not the first time Trump has gone after Haberman. It’s also just the latest example of Trump insulting female journalists.
A Times spokesperson said, “The Times’s reporting is based on information from multiple people with knowledge of the discussions and planning around New York’s Sept. 11 ceremony. Our journalists sought comment from the White House communications team, who provided a statement that didn’t contradict what we had learned. The president chose to attack the story 24 hours later, singling out one of the four reporters who wrote it. We are confident in the accuracy of the reporting.”
On Sunday, The New York Times published a story from Emmanuel Akinwotu, Pranav Baskar, Genevieve Glatsky and Hamed Aleaziz: “Deportees Recount Harrowing Journeys to Africa: Shackles, a ‘Freezer’ and Blows.”
The Times reporters wrote, “The New York Times interviewed 10 of the deportees on the flight to Liberia, all of whom described a harrowing journey that included months in detention in the United States and a panicked 14-hour expulsion to Africa, in which agents wrestled and shackled frightened detainees. Several spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. All of them said they experienced or witnessed what they described as abusive or violent treatment by ICE officials during the course of their deportation or while in detention in the United States.”
One deportee from Venezuela who was expelled to Liberia told the Times, “They didn’t treat us like people, like human beings. They can say or do anything to you and there’s nothing you can do.”
The Times added, “The White House, Department of Homeland Security and State Department said in statements that the only deportees being sent to third countries are those who cannot be returned to their home nations or refuse to go back.”
Not long after the story was posted online, the Department of Homeland Security tweeted, “Another day and another hoax about ICE detention from the @nytimes. The media is clearly desperate for these false allegations to be true. NO ONE is being tortured, denied medical care, or beaten in ICE detention facilities. Make no mistake: this type of GARBAGE being peddled by the media is fueling the more than 1,300% increase in assaults against our officers, who put their lives on the line every day to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens and protect the lives of American citizens.”
The Times responded with this statement: “Four journalists from The Times rigorously reported this story, including interviewing 10 people sent from the United States to Africa and obtaining corroborating information about their experiences. The Times sought comment from across the administration, including the Department of Homeland Security, about the claims of these deportees. This reporting presents a fair, thorough and above all accurate portrayal of the testimonies of those deported to Liberia and Equatorial Guinea.”
The Group of 20 — better known as the G20 — will have high-level finance meetings this week in Asheville, North Carolina. Journalists from around the world will be there to cover matters involving the global economy.
But certain reporters from three major news outlets — The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News — were denied credentials by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin wrote, “Alan Rappeport, an economic policy reporter who reports on the Treasury Department for The Times, has been excluded from the meeting. Since he began covering the department in 2017, he has attended nearly a dozen G7 and G20 meetings in person. Matt Grossman, an economics reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was also denied a credential.”
However, the Times reported a credential has been granted to Jim Tankersley, the Times’ Berlin bureau chief, who reports on Germany and other parts of Europe.
Nicole Taylor, a spokesperson for The Times, told Mullin in a statement that the decision was “not just another disturbing effort by the administration to undermine independent journalism, but a blatant attempt to evade public scrutiny. With the war in Iran, sanctions, the bond markets and inflation on the agenda for the G20 finance ministers, the stakes of this gathering are significant for the global economy and the American people.”
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department said in a statement that the department would be welcoming “nearly 300 members of the media from approximately a dozen countries,” including reporters from NPR, The Washington Post and Al Jazeera.
Still, it’s not clear exactly why certain reporters were denied credentials.
The statement went on to say, “Secretary Bessent will participate in numerous media engagements throughout the event, including one-on-one interviews with local and national outlets across the political spectrum. Members of the media will have a high level of access to policymakers throughout the event, and with that access comes a responsibility to report factual information consistent with established journalistic standards.”
The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp had this stunning story on Sunday: “Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles.”
Lamothe and Copp wrote, “The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material. At least some of the influencers have been assigned to civilian roles that could lead to changes in policy, the people familiar with the matter said.”
There are plenty of troubling details in the story, so it’s worth reading in full.
In a surprise development, Roxanna Scott is out as ESPN’s top editor. What makes it surprising is that Scott was named senior vice president and editor-in-chief less than 10 months ago. Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel, who first reported the story, wrote, “Her role was eliminated this week in a reorganization of the network’s news division and there will be a new editorial structure that ESPN brass feels will better support its newsgathering needs, a source said. Scott’s exit is not being characterized as being part of a new round of layoffs.”
Scott spent nearly 20 years at USA Today, where she rose to executive editor and vice president of sports. She then had a short stint running the daily desk at The Athletic before taking the job at ESPN in December.
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