After calling Kristen Welker crooked and walking out of his own interview, Donald Trump reached out to her the following morning. The conversation did not revolve around the insults, the argument or the abrupt ending. According to Welker, Trump had something else on his mind.
“I spoke to him the morning after the interview, and without getting into an exact verbatim of what was said, he effectively said, ‘Look, the rain was disruptive. We’re going to do this again in Washington,'” Welker told Vanity Fair.
Trump offered much the same explanation later that day during a Wisconsin farmers roundtable. “I just did an interview in the most beautiful barn I’ve ever seen. It was a beauty, but it was raining. And it was with NBC fake news. And because it was raining, I got a little bit angry at them. I was not happy with them. But we had a good time.”
That explanation has since become the center of a growing debate over what actually ended the interview.
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The exchange had already stretched to about 35 minutes inside a barn in Chippewa Falls, with rain pounding the metal roof throughout, when Welker pressed Trump about his repeated claims that the election had been rigged. The conversation quickly deteriorated from there.
Trump told Welker she was either “crooked or stupid.” When she pushed back, he continued. “You’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN, one-sided crooked networks. Let’s call it quits, because I’ve had enough… Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
Welker reminded Trump that she had traveled all the way to Wisconsin for the interview. His response was equally memorable.
“I sat in the rain with you for an hour. On and off in the rain, and I’ve given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”
By the time Sunday’s broadcast arrived, Welker appeared willing to move on from the confrontation. She said she and Trump “both acknowledged the complications during the interview posed by the rain.”
Not everyone was buying that explanation.
Jon Stewart devoted part of his Daily Show monologue to dismantling the weather defense, and he was not particularly gentle about it.
“You were inside! There was no challenge from the rain! F–k that! No! Donald Trump was not thrown off by the ambient noise during the interview. In fact, ambient farm rain is the least disruptive noise environment he conducts interviews in!”
Stewart then rolled footage of Trump conducting interviews beside helicopter engines, on airport tarmacs and even on the White House roof.
“Donald Trump didn’t storm out because of the rain. He stormed out because he was challenged, not because he was distracted. So maybe it’s time we stop making excuses for that man in order to preserve access to his constant bullshit.”
Welker, for her part, seemed far less interested in relitigating the argument than many of Trump’s critics.
When asked about the incident, she brushed it aside. “I’ve covered President Trump since 2015 when he was a candidate, and it doesn’t faze me at all. It’s part of the conversation. I anticipate it to some extent.”
Her larger goal, she said, remains unchanged: “to get answers on behalf of the American people.”
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
