Stelter: FCC ‘can’t punish Welker,’ but NBC may be targeted next
President Donald Trump on Sunday called on the Federal Communications Commission to take action against NBC News Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, after Welker, on a live shot from Washington DC’s NBC affiliate before Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press, described the success record of political candidates Trump had endorsed as “mixed,” according to CNN media reporter Brian Stelter.
In a social media post, Trump derided Welker as the “Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of … Meet the Fake Press,” accused her of “purposeful inaccuracy,” and warned she would “be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.” The post also said Trump hoped his appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr and Carr’s colleagues “take this Threat to our Country very seriously.”
Once the show started, a guest analyst told viewers that “the single most important factor in who the Republican nominee will be in [2028] will be who Donald Trump endorses.”
“My Endorsements are stronger than ever,” Trump wrote in a 23 August social media post. “There has never been anything close!” Trump is estimated to have made more than 300 endorsements that resulted in the recipient winning, according to the Guardian’s reporting. In the primary cycle ahead of November’s midterms, 214 of 218 House candidates he endorsed won their primaries, along with all 24 Republican Senate primaries. In gubernatorial primaries, five of the 21 candidates Trump endorsed lost — including Mike Lindell, who finished a distant second in Minnesota to state House speaker Lisa Demuth. The state supreme court on Saturday effectively confirmed Lindell’s 11-percentage-point defeat by rejecting his bid for a recount.
When taking aim at Welker on Sunday, Trump touted recent primary victories by candidates he had endorsed, including South Carolina US Senate candidate Darline Graham and Oklahoma gubernatorial hopeful Mike Mazzei. He had said days earlier that any of his endorsed candidates who lost were already faced with “impossible” races but had earned his support “out of loyalty.”
On Friday, HBO Max talk show host Bill Maher apologized to Trump for claiming that the president is winning “almost none of” his endorsements, after Trump sent Maher statistics making his case.
In September 2025, Carr reportedly pressured television station groups to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show as punishment for a comment Kimmel, a frequent critic of the president, made after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Two broadcast groups — Sinclair and Nexstar — did pre-empt the show; ABC opted to “indefinitely” pull it before Kimmel returned to the air a week later.
ABC sued the FCC earlier this month, alleging the agency was illegally targeting the network after ABC was forced to apply early to renew eight local broadcast licenses. Among Republicans’ complaints cited in reporting were claims that candidates were not given equal airtime on the daytime talk show The View. “Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” the network said in its lawsuit.
Trump has also won private settlements from ABC and CBS totaling more than $30 million during his second presidency, according to the Guardian. NBC, which is licensed by the FCC to directly operate 11 local stations, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stelter, who reported on Welker’s pre-broadcast remarks, wrote Sunday that the FCC “can’t punish Welker” because it has “limited power … by design.” He noted, however, that Carr has been “responsive” to Trump in the past, and that “it’s reasonable to think NBC will be targeted next.”
The FCC was established in 1934. Involving itself in broadcast outlets’ editorial decisions and constitutionally protected speech is beyond the agency’s mandate, according to the Guardian’s account of its remit.
In June, Trump walked out of an hour-long interview with Welker after being asked, among other topics, about his pledge of “no new wars” during his successful run for a second presidency. According to the Guardian, Trump started a war in Iran in late February alongside Israel; Trump denied during the interview that he had guaranteed no wars if returned to the Oval Office. “You’re a one-sided crooked network,” Trump told Welker at the time. “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”