The Political News Media Still Doesn’t Know How To Interview Trump, So I’m Going To Show Them
I watched the Meet The Press interview and analyzed what the political news media’s responses to Donald Trump should have been.
I often come across debates about whether or not known liars or those who espouse anti-democratic views should be given a mainstream news platform. On one hand, giving a platform to a liar spreads those lies further. On the other hand, shouldn’t the voting population know what a candidate believes and says, so they can make a decision about who to support? Isn’t what they are saying, news?
I do not have a simple answer, because I don’t think there is one. Which is why I am writing about it.
In my previous Substack, I described four theories about how the political news media is getting it wrong in covering MAGA more broadly, and Donald Trump specifically: bothsidesism, doomsdaying, access journalism, and fascist-normalizing. In this column, I wanted to apply these ideas to a specific tactical instance.
And that instance is Donald Trump on Meet The Press. Kristen Welker is the new host of Meet The Press, and in her first outing, she interviewed Mr. Trump on September 17. I watched the interview and focused my analysis is on the responses (or lack of them) from Ms. Welker to lies as they were happening in real time. Meet The Press also published afterwards, which I find of limited value as fewer people will see it, and it does nothing to dispute lies in real time.
A few notes:
I list each lie as stated by Mr. Trump, the response, and then note what the response should have been.
This is not every lie. There were too many, but this is a broad cross-section.
There are a few instances where Ms. Welker did push back, and I’ll note them.
Meet The Press also ran interstitials to counter some lies.
Finally, a lot of the mainstream press criticized Ms. Welker for how she handled this interview. I don’t agree. I think Ms. Welker aspires to be a good journalist and she put in the effort as best she could. She was simply overpowered.
You can watch the Meet The Press interview of Mr. Trump here.
Introduction at the beginning of the show, before Mr. Trump is on
Kristen Welker: “House Republicans announce impeachment inquiry.”
“Impeachment inquiry” is language from the GOP in the House, and is not the same thing as an impeachment. But all the average listener hears is that word and they think President Biden is being impeached. An impeachment comes after evidence is established, not before. At the very least, what is happening now in D.C. is an ongoing investigation. Meet The Press should have clarified: it is simply a continuing investigation that so far has not turned up any evidence.
KW: “The president’s son Hunter was indicted on gun charges…and people close to Joe Biden are worried his son’s troubles will hurt the President.”
This may be true that people are worried, but Meet The Press is doing the bidding of the GOP by trying to connect POTUS to his son. If Biden’s son has committed a crime, he should be charged. But so far, these charges have nothing to do with President Joe Biden, they are about Hunter Biden.
KW: “Razor-close election.”
What polls is Meet The Press referencing? One of the biggest polls that show this is a “razor-close” election was funded by Mr. Trump’s SuperPAC (never mind Washington Post’s “outlier” poll this week that does not reflect reality). Other polls show President Biden leading Trump by a fairly wide margin. Additionally, over the past decade, polling results have shown to be very wrong (just ask Hillary). But a razor-close election is a horse race that people have to tune-in for, so this is why the media loves to report it as such.
KW: “Trump has been indicted on 91 felony counts.”
Great. This is giving off “bury the lede” vibes, but glad she said it. I consider this the single most important fact about the candidacy of Mr. Trump.
The Interview with Mr. Trump
Mr. Trump: “You look at the terrible things happening in respect to Biden…stone cold guilty…and they implicate Joe Biden.” (at approximately 2:20)
KW’s pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: there aren’t terrible things happening to President Biden. There are pushes by the GOP to investigate but they have found no evidence as of yet. And the gun charges have nothing to do with President Biden, they are related to his son, Hunter Biden.
Analysis: Mr. Trump knows that by connecting one thing to another you get shared association, positive or negative. This is a classic marketing move.
DT: “We have to save our country.” (4:20)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: save our country from what? Despite challenges, our country is doing well by many economic measures.
Analysis: Why not push back on that phrasing? Ms. Welker instead lets it slide as if it’s true. This is a classic move by marketers and leaders - if you say a thing in passing, it is perceived as true by a subset of listeners. This is a very common tactic by Mr. Trump as will be illustrated here: say a thing in passing, and hope it doesn’t get fact-checked. This would have required Ms. Welker to be prepared with a number of facts and data points.
DT: “If you would say it correctly, I’m facing four Biden indictments. He told the DOJ to indict me. He’s indicting his political opponent.” (4:35)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: That is not true. A grand jury indicted you, not President Biden. These are not Biden indictments, these are Trump indictments. Side note: do you see how Mr. Trump connects the name Biden with a negative word “indictment” without anyone noticing? Truly a masterclass in marketing.
Secondarily, Ms. Welker could have said: hold on a second, how do you know this? That’s quite an accusation. You have said you would put your political opponents in prison, and you led chants of “lock her up” many times over the years. Isn’t that what you want to do in terms of “indicting political opponents”?
Analysis: Ms. Welker, in her rush to get to her next question, moved on, letting that accusation hang there as if it were true. People who don’t understand how a grand jury works, or how the DOJ works, assume this simple explanation by Mr. Trump is true. Another side note: you can tell Ms. Welker’s question did get under Mr. Trump’s skin, and despite me wanting to be purely factual here, I did feel a bit of joy at that.
DT: “These are corrupt people we are dealing with. These are third world indictments.” (4:50)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: Hold on a second. Again this was multiple grand juries of citizens who indicted you. When you say corrupt, when you say third world indictments, what do you mean? We live in a society based on laws and systems and you are being processed under that system right now.
Analysis: this is a classic move by authoritarians to blame another entity for the thing that you are suspected of doing.
DT: “These are banana republic indictments. I’m up by 59 points, I’m leading by 59 points.” (5:30)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: my question was about indictments, not about polls. The polls, regardless of what they are, have no relation to you being charged with 91 felony counts.
DT: “There are numerous books that show the election was rigged.” (9:20)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: There were 63 lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election and you lost all of them. There is no evidence the election was rigged.
Analysis: a common tactic among deceitful leaders is to repeat a lie like an ear worm until it gets embedded in human perception as true by a subset of the population. Mr. Trump knows what he is doing. But just repeating a lie does not make it true, and that should be repeated as much as the lie itself.
DT: “Nancy Pelosi was in charge of security. She turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn’t turn down the soldiers, you wouldn’t have had January 6.” (12:55)
KW pushback: there was some, but it didn’t come right away. A few minutes later, Ms. Welker starts to say “But Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the authority that you have as Commander-in-Chief…” and Trump realizes he’s getting fact-checked in real time, so talks over her to drown her out. Ms. Welker doesn’t finish her sentence.
Pushback should have been: This is false, according to the Associated Press back in 2021. As Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi did not direct the National Guard. Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and the Senate Majority Leader called for military assistance, including the National Guard. This was a quick google search away for me.
Analysis: this is a big one. Mr. Trump knows that the population needs someone to blame for January 6, if not him. And he needs to make it simple: the person, and the reason. And that’s what he is trying to do here. With Meet The Press’ large platform, it had the opportunity to refute this lie on the spot. Because it gets to the critical question of who to blame for January 6, Meet The Press should have been prepared to refute this lie, forcefully and in real time.
DT: “I did such a good job on January 6. Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers… Capitol police testified against her…” (13:10)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: Mr. Trump, you are the only President who oversaw an insurrection. Additionally, Capitol police did not testify against Nancy Pelosi. They testified about the events of January 6.
Analysis: This is another great example of what appears to be minor language twist that shifts the framing of facts. The way it is stated sounds like Nancy Pelosi was on trial. It’s this twisting that goes unsubstantiated and is easy to understand, and like ear worms, get into our head. This is how 2+2=5 in the novel 1984. I do not understand how the political news media does not yet understand this.
DT: “They burned all the evidence. They destroyed all the evidence about Nancy Pelosi….she’s responsible for January 6.” (13:34)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: what are you even talking about. There was no destruction of evidence.
Analysis: Ms. Welker ignores this lie and moves on to another question, letting the accusation that someone burned evidence of something somehow floating unchallenged to millions of viewers. This is the third time that Mr. Trump blamed Ms. Pelosi for January 6, and Meet The Press is helpless to stop that narrative from going out into the world (unless, of course, if Meet The Press were not to air the interview at all). I’m going to skip any further references to Nancy Pelosi for the sake of brevity, as it continued.
DT: I did a great job as President. People are acknowledging. Great economy, great job, great this, great that. I could go on forever.” (15:24)
KW pushback: none.
Pushback should have been: The economy lost 2.9 million jobs when you were President, and unemployment grew to 6.3%.
Analysis: At this point, credit to Meet The Press for popping into the interview with a fact-checking interstitial. But there are so many lies that the news media could never correct them all. So this leads to the bigger question: if journalism is about truth, why give itself over to distributing such a tidal wave of lies that is ultimately uncheckable.
DT: “The radical Democrats who say after 5 months, 6 months, 9 months…even after birth, you’re allowed to terminate the baby…” (18:50)
KW pushback: “The Democrats are not saying that” (good job, Ms. Welker, you got one). Additionally I would have added: what are you even talking about? Abortion after birth is not even a thing by definition.
Analysis: Mr. Trump repeated this same lie 30 seconds later, and then 30 seconds after that, and then 15 seconds after that, and then 45 seconds after that, and then one minute after that, and then four minutes after that. As noted earlier, Mr. Trump knows that lie repetition exhausts the mind into believing at least something might be true, and he knows that is enough.
Ms. Welker continued the interview to cover foreign policy and other issues, and then concluded with a panel roundtable, which I did not watch.
Conclusions
So was this interview worth it? According to Deadline, “Kristen Welker’s ‘Meet The Press’ Debut Wins Total Viewers, 25-54 Demo In Final Numbers.” To NBC News as a business, it appears that yes, it was worth it.
But was it worth it to America, to democracy?
I don't think Ms. Welker doing all the things I describe above would have swayed a Trump voter. Could it have persuaded an independent? Possibly. Does it matter? It does not. The media should not be in the business of elections (Or should it? Or is it already? A worthy topic for another day). Ideally, it is in the business of reporting on the truth, even when the business runs on subscription and ad revenue. Liars know that if they say enough lies in the political news media, some of them will get through unchecked. If Ms. Welker had done some of what I described above, it would have been a template for how to report on the truth when it comes to Donald Trump.
The good news? We already have a template for how to report on Donald Trump, as there are journalists who are on the case - and it’s not that hard. Check out Jonathan Swan’s 2020 interview of Donald Trump here. The takeaway from that interview:
Swan demolished some of Trump’s most dishonest talking points with a powerful tactic that has rarely been used by the people Trump has allowed to interview him:
Basic follow-up questions.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe platforming a candidate and his lies is good for America, but to-date, it has been quite bad. I don’t believe the political news media is doing its job, and I think it should. It is the fourth estate, and we need it.