President Donald Trump has vowed to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against NBC News anchor Kristen Welker, demanding she face official reprimand for her on-air characterization of his political endorsement success rate.
The “Meet the Press” moderator, 48, drew the president’s ire during Sunday’s broadcast when she described his endorsement record in Republican primary elections this cycle as yielding “mixed results.” Trump, 79, immediately fired back on Truth Social, disputing the characterization and calling for regulatory intervention against both Welker and the network.
“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves? Results are attached. Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,” Trump wrote on the platform. “Unfortunately, she is not the only one.”
The president directed his appeal specifically to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, whom he appointed to chair the commission, urging him to take the “Threat to our Country very seriously.” NBC News operates a network of local broadcast stations that hold FCC licenses, which the government grants due to limited public airwave spectrum.
“Kristen is one of the best in the business, and we stand by her,” an NBC spokesperson said in response to Trump’s broadside.
Trump’s Truth Social posts laid out his own statistics, claiming a 100% success rate in GOP Senate primaries and a 98% rate in House GOP primaries. He highlighted recent victories including Sen. Darline Graham’s primary runoff in South Carolina last week and Mike Mazzei’s win in the Oklahoma GOP gubernatorial primary. He contended that many candidates he backed “were not even given a shot of winning until I Endorsed.”
“The Radical Left News is going out of their way to harass, demean, and libel anything ‘TRUMP,'” the president continued in his social media posts. “…In actuality, it is, without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics.”
Independent tallies paint a more complicated picture than either Welker’s summary or Trump’s claims. According to Ballotpedia, Trump had made approximately 313 endorsements with a 96% success rate overall, though many of those came in primaries that were not particularly competitive. The former president did suffer notable setbacks, including failed endorsements of scandal-plagued Rep. Cory Mills in Florida, Amir Hassan in Michigan, Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee, Randy Feenstra in Iowa, Burt Jones in Georgia, and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell in Minnesota.
Carr has previously threatened to intensify scrutiny of broadcast networks he considers biased, and the Trump administration has already targeted ABC News with a lawsuit. Sunday’s complaint against Welker represents an escalation in the president’s efforts to leverage regulatory power against media coverage he disputes.
“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,” Trump concluded in his Truth Social posts. “Thank you for your attention to this very important matter of Fake Polls and Commentary.”
This is not the first time Trump has aggressively defended his endorsement record against media figures. He previously sent private text messages to comedian Bill Maher criticizing the “Real Time” host for trashing his endorsement success, prompting Maher to acknowledge on air that the president was correct.