What's Old is New Again on Meet the Press
Meet the Press continues its descent into irrelevancy after giving an insurrectionist former president the microphone.
NBC News’s flagship Sunday program—Meet the Press—made a shift this year. Long-time host Chuck Todd stepped down, making way for former White House correspondent Kristen Welker to assume the role as host. It’s a storied position within the political media. Meet the Press debuted in 1947 and has long been a place where political discourse, debate, and accountability provided key elements of a show that was often a must-watch for news or political junkies.
Meet the Press prided itself on its fierce independence, attempting to hold politicians of either party accountable for their words or actions. Few topped the legendary Tim Russert, whose stewardship of the program arguably remains the pinnacle of televised political journalism.
The show never quite reached those heights under subsequent hosts David Gregory or Chuck Todd. Hard to blame them. Replacing Russert is like succeeding a legendary coach. Russert’s shadow loomed (and still looms) large over the show and its hosts.
In theory, Kristen Welker is a fine choice for a host. In a medium still dominated by white men, Welker is a Black woman with a lengthy career at NBC News. She’s served in plum roles in the Washington, D.C. press corps, including as one of NBC’s White House correspondents. If there’s a clear path to hosting NBC’s most important political news show, Welker was well on her way.
However, as the days grew closer to Welker’s debut as host of Meet the Press, it seemed clear that NBC News had chosen to ignore an alarming problem.
Welker’s first major interview as host would be a pretaped interview with Donald Trump—the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, former president, and a man who attempted to remain in power after losing the presidency in 2020.
I cringed.
I found Welker’s coverage of the Trump presidency from within the White House to be paltry. Her coverage seemed to normalize demogogic and dangerous behavior as if there was little difference between the Trump presidency and his predecessors.
Sure, Welker is attempting to maintain a high level of objectivity covering the White House, regardless of the president’s partisanship or ideology. I get it. That’s the job. Yet, there was something off by the way Welker never seemed to address the myriad lies, lack of ethics, and sheer disregard for anything resembling decency.
That was before Trump encouraged his supporters to engage in insurrection and ransack the Capitol in a failed effort to overturn the results of a presidential election, allowing Trump to remain in power.
Following Trump’s exit from the White House and his seemingly endless legal battles since his departure, you would think that the person now hosting a news program known for holding the powerful accountable wouldn’t dare conduct a cushy interview with Trump.
Welker had other ideas.
The media has done plenty to normalize and tacitly support an authoritarian who’s the figurehead of a growing fascist movement. In the name of journalistic objectivity and a desire to avoid the appearance of bias, far too many in the media—Welker included—actively chose to treat Trump, his followers, and their blantantly anti-democratic beliefs and agenda as part of the normal discourse—a product of our increasingly polarized state.
In the hours following Meet the Press airing Welker’s boneheaded interview with Trump (an interview in which Welker gave cover to the heinous lie that there’s such a thing as post-birth abortion), Trump celebrated the Jewish High Holiday of Rosh Hashanah by attacking “liberal Jews.” This, of course, comes at a time when antisemitism has risen dramatically across the United States.
For whatever reason, Welker or her bosses at NBC News continue to move the red line. No matter what Trump says or does, they continue to treat him as some sort of normal part of American politics. Yes, he’s a former president and leader of the Republican party. He’s also a man facing 91 felony charges across four indictments, was found liable of sexual assault, allegedly manipulated his personal and company’s finances, and as previously mentioned, attempted to end our democracy and eliminate the peaceful transfer of power.
None of his addresses the seemingly endless list of terrible things he did as president in the normal course of serving in that capacity.
If Meet the Press wants to interview a man with this kind of track record, so be it. But he should be subject to the same level of scrutiny and cross-examination Kristen Welker would undoubtedly reserve for dictators and despots.
That’s where Trump belongs.
We went down this road in 2015 and 2016, normalizing Trump’s irrational and offensive behavior. He empowered white supremacy at levels we haven’t witnessed for decades—and that was before he won. The media embraced the Trump circus at the expense of every other candidate—Democratic and Republican alike.
Did we not learn our lesson?
Until Welker, NBC News, and much of the national media fully grasp what’s at hand, we inch ever closer to the full collapse of American democracy and a full-throated authoritarian regime in power. The good news for Kristen Welker is she seems well-positioned to have a front row seat.