Donald Trump Walks Out After Kristen Welker Presses Him on California Rigging Evidence

Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after Kristen Welker pressed him for evidence that California’s gubernatorial race was rigged, and he lashed out at her by saying, “You’re crooked or you’re stupid,” before storming off.

“The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has never hidden his contempt for journalists who confront him”

Folha de S.Paulo

In the same exchange, Trump told Welker, “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time,” as Welker pleaded for him to stay and said, “Mr. President, please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.”

Folha de S.Paulo

The episode was framed by Vivia Chen as a “Trump shitshow,” while the BBC described the walkout as part of a broader pattern in which Trump dismissed Welker’s questions about evidence.

The Guardian later tied the incident to a longer-running pattern of Trump insulting female journalists, pointing to his “next-level hatred for women” and citing his earlier remarks about Megyn Kelly and other reporters.

Margaret Sullivan in The Guardian argued that the insults and the lies keep happening and must stop, and she described Welker’s confrontation as “painful” because she repeatedly implored Trump, calling him “sir,” while he talked over her and lied.

Sullivan proposed that journalists keep “receipts” ready and confront Trump with audio or video of past statements, writing that “it’s harder for him to bluster – and it gives the power in the interview back to the journalist.”

Freedom of the Press Foundation

In the same account of the walkout, Sullivan noted that Trump dismissed Welker as “darling” as he abruptly walked off the interview set, and she pointed to the Wisconsin barn and rainstorm setting as part of the interview’s logistical challenges.

Vivia Chen’s commentary also emphasized that Welker continued after Trump ended the interview, writing that she pleaded with him repeatedly to stay and that Welker later blamed “weather issues” in a post on X.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation said journalists covering protests in the United States have been shot with crowd-control munitions, sprayed with tear gas, hit with cars, and physically attacked by both law enforcement and demonstrators, and it warned that jurisdictions banning safety gear at public protests endanger reporters and “the public’s right to know.”

“For many years now, Donald Trump has been saying awful things to – or about – the female media figures who have the nerve to ask him questions and challenge his falsehoods”

The Guardian

The foundation quoted an unnamed journalist saying, “PPE is “the only reason I am alive.”,” and it described a wave of violence against journalists documenting protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second administration.

Separately, Freedom of the Press Foundation said the Trump Presidential Library told The Washington Post it possessed “no records” of Donald Trump’s first-term Twitter direct messages, but then sent a contradictory response confirming it does hold those records.

The foundation also tied its FOIA lawsuit to the DOJ’s failure to disclose records about the “unprecedented January FBI raid on Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home,” and it argued that the administration wants federal agencies to require employees to sign standardized nondisclosure agreements to silence public employees and punish whistleblowers.