The president Donald Trump abruptly left the recording set during an interview aired this Sunday on the program «Meet the Press» from NBC, after insulting the host Kristen Welker and accusing several television networks of being corrupt.
The interview had been recorded the week before in a barn on a farm in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where the sound of heavy rain on the metal roof interrupted the conversation several times.
Trump attacked Welker with the phrase: "You are corrupt or you are stupid," after accusing, without providing any evidence, that the elections in the United States are rigged.
Before getting up and leaving, the president also criticized the networks NBC, CBS, and ABC: "They are corrupt just like you are corrupt, your press is corrupt. And Meet the Press is corrupt."
Welker responded calmly, "To be fair, I am not corrupt. But let's continue."
Trump did not respond to the invitation: "Let's leave it here because I've had enough," he said, bidding farewell with a "Thank you, dear. Have a good time."
The host, who is the second woman and the first black journalist to lead the longest-running political program on American television, maintained her composure throughout the entire sequence of insults.
In April, when Welker interviewed the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel in Havana, he reacted with annoyance to one of her questions and .
When asked if he would be willing to resign to save Cuba, Díaz-Canel responded, "Do they ask that question to Trump?" and suggested that the question might be coming from the U.S. State Department.
The interview with Trump addressed several significant topics, including the war between the United States and Israel against Iran, which this Sunday marked 100 days since its start on February 28.
Trump defended the conflict as necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and denied having promised during his campaign to end wars abroad.
When Welker asked him about the rise in gas and fertilizer prices due to the war, the president interrupted her: "Are you ready? Am I allowed to speak? You keep asking questions and aren't listening to the answers." He added that prices would decrease once the conflict is over.
Regarding the "anti-weaponization" fund of $1.776 billion established by the Department of Justice to compensate individuals claiming to have been unjustly prosecuted —including participants in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021— Trump stated that "people were destroyed by corrupt police and by the weaponization" and that "many of those people should be compensated."
However, a federal judge temporarily blocked the fund last month, and the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, announced that the administration would not move forward with it after receiving criticism from both parties.
The episode fits into a documented pattern of verbal attacks by Trump against female journalists. In November 2025, he told Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey, "Silence. Silence, piglet."
In December of that year, she labeled the ABC reporter Rachel Scott as "the most annoying reporter in the entire place."
Last month, he called reporter Akayla Gardner a "fool" for pointing out that the cost of the White House ballroom project had doubled.
He has also repeatedly attacked Kaitlan Collins from CNN for not smiling enough.
Despite the tense conclusion, Welker informed her viewers that Trump had agreed to sit down with her again: "He agreed to meet with me for another interview on Meet the Press," she said, after revealing that they had a cordial conversation on Saturday in which they "acknowledged the complications" caused by the rain.
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