“If it’s Sunday”, per the booming voice of the show’s announcer, “it’s Meet the Press.” Meet the Press has become synonymous, as is the case with the rest of the Sunday shows, with horribly biased coverage of conservatives generally, and of President Donald Trump specifically. This-week’s much-ballyhooed presidential interview was not the exception.
The interview began with an exchange on the economy. An exchange on “empty shelves” led to Trump’s first rebuke of Welker:
“THIS IS SUCH A DISHONEST INTERVIEW ALREADY”: @realDonaldTrump swats Kristen Welker’s “empty shelves” question pic.twitter.com/NhtirReFbD
– Jorge Bonilla (@Bonillajl) May 4, 2025
DONALD TRUMP: And we’re doing really well psychologically. The fake news was giving me such press on the tariffs. The tariffs are going to make us rich. We’re going to be a very rich country.
KRISTEN WELKER: So let’s talk about the tariffs. And I want to ask you about something you said this week that got a lot of attention. Your cabinet meeting, you said, quote, and I’m going to quote what you said: “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls”?
TRUMP: Yeah.
WELKER: “And maybe the two dolls would cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up?
TRUMP: No, I think the tariffs are going to be great for us because it’s going to make us rich.
WELKER: But you said some dolls are going to cost more. Isn’t that an acknowledgement that some prices will go up?
TRUMP: Sure. I don’t think- I don’t think a beautiful baby girl needs- that’s 11 years old- needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls because what we were doing with China is unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China.
WELKER: When you say they could have three dolls instead of 30 dolls, are you saying you’re- Americans see empty store shelves?
TRUMP: No, I’m not- no, I’m saying that. I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls, they can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils, they can have five.
WELKER: But you’re basically saying there could be some supply shortages because of the tariffs.
TRUMP: I’m basically saying we don’t have to waste money on a trade deficit with China for things we don’t need, for junk that we don’t need.
WELKER: Well, prices are already going up on some popular items. Tires, strollers…
TRUMP: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa. This is such a dishonest interview already.
WELKER: No, no.
TRUMP: Prices are down on groceries.
WELKER: Right.
TRUMP: Prices are down for oil. Prices are down for oil and energy, prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline and let me tell you, when you have the big thing, what he did. He spent, like, a stupid person, which he was, but he spent like a very stupid person and that was bad for inflation. But what really killed us with inflation was the price of energy. It went up to $3.90 even $4 and in California, $5 and $6, right? Ok. I have it down to $1.98 in many states right now. When you go that much lower on energy, which is ahead of my prediction because I really thought I could get it down into the $2.50s, we have it down at $1.98 in numerous places. But when you say costs are going up, even mortgage rates are going down.
Welker got rightly called out for pushing “empty shelves” at this juncture of the process. Her hunger and thirst for a gotcha moment led her to push for a follow-up but completely miss Trump’s rationale for the tariffs:
“We don’t need to feed the beast.” @realDonaldTrump addresses what is at the heart of current economic policy: weaning the U.S. away from an overreliance on cheap Chinese goods pic.twitter.com/eoRZCriusv
– Jorge Bonilla (@Bonillajl) May 4, 2025
WELKER: Let me give you some examples. These are- I mean, these are actual examples. So you’re saying the prices are going down. Some prices are going up. Tires, strollers, some clothing in the wake of your tariffs.
TRUMP: That’s peanuts compared to energy. Energy is 60% of the cost. Energy is…
WELKER: But sir, you campaigned to bring prices down on day one.
TRUMP: Well, I don’t know what- you say strollers are going up. What kind of a thing? I’m saying that gasoline is going down. Gasoline is thousands of times more important than a stroller someplace.
WELKER: But what do you say to Americans who say they voted for you because they want and they need relief right now.
TRUMP: And they’re getting it.
WELKER: Right now? What about those different items I just mentioned—
TRUMP: Mortgage rates are going down despite the fact we have a stubborn Fed.
TRUMP: But you said dolls- even dolls could cost a couple of bucks more.
TRUMP: Maybe they might, but you don’t need to have, as I said, 35 dolls. You can have two, three, four, and save a lot of money. We don’t need to feed the beast.
“Feed the beast” is a clear reference to overreliance on China for cheap imported goods, and the strategic peril therein. This got lost in service of a lame gotcha that never materialized.
WATCH: @realdonaldtrump catches Welker on a cherrypicked quote, holds fast on China tariffs pic.twitter.com/3etzmNxM73
– Jorge Bonilla (@Bonillajl) May 4, 2025
WELKER: You take me to my next question which is about China. They’ve been making a number of public statements.
TRUMP: Very positive statements the last 24 hours.
WELKER: Well- most recently, they said before talks could happen the U.S. would have to remove unilateral tariffs. Would you consider dropping the tariffs to get China to the negotiating table?
TRUMP: No. First of all, you’re giving me a statement that was said a week ago. You’re not giving the statement that was said today.
WELKER: I have May 2nd, Chinese Commerce Ministry.
TRUMP: Do you know what they said today? “We’re looking forward…”
WELKER: The U.S. should show sincerity by preparing to take action in correcting its mistakes and canceling the unilateral tariffs.
TRUMP: They made num- first of all, they made numerous statements.
WELKER: Yes. They’ve made numerous statements.
TRUMP: You know how many people speak for China…?
WELKER: Yes. They’ve made numerous statements.
TRUMP: I can give you a statement for any occasion.
WELKER: Yes. Yes.
TRUMP: But they said today they want to talk. Look. China, and I don’t like this, I’m not happy about this. China is getting killed right now. They’re getting absolutely destroyed. Their factories are closing, their unemployment is going through the roof. I’m not looking to do that to China. Now, at the same time I’m not looking to have China make hundreds and billions of dollars and build more ships, and more army tanks and more airplanes.
WELKER: So you’re not prepare- just to be very clear, you’re dropping the tariffs against China to get them to the negotiating table. Those tariffs are staying on.
TRUMP: Why would I- why would I do that?
WELKER: Would you lower them?
TRUMP: At some point I’m going to lower them because otherwise you could never do business with them. And they want to do business very much. Look. Their economy is really doing badly. Their economy is collapsing.
Here again, the points about national security and the Chinese economy sailed over Welker’s head because she was chasing a moment where she might corner Trump. Welker took the Chinese government quote as an opportunity for such, but was quickly shut down.
After an exchange on small business, the interview shifts to immigration, and to continued advocacy for MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego García. The most interesting part of the exchange is not Welker’s continued advocacy, but what DIDN’t make it to air on Meet the Press, to wit: Trump’s mention of piling domestic violence evidence against Abrego Garcia.
“EDITED FOR CLARITY”: NBC News cuts President Trump’s mention of the emergence of damning evidence against Kilmar Abrego García from the Meet the Press broadcast.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: You see what happened just this morning. Tapes came out, horrible tapes from his wife. You don’t… pic.twitter.com/ppr15BxLOa
– Jorge Bonilla (@Bonillajl) May 4, 2025
TRUMP: You see what happened just this morning. Tapes came out, horrible tapes from his wife. You don’t get much worse than that. You don’t get, I mean, he seems certainly like a very dangerous, very bad person, but even the wife who. was so afraid. She was afraid to talk and all of a sudden, tapes got released this morning that were devastating to him.
After staking their credibility on Abrego Garcia and being humiliated for it, the media appear to have decided to collectively memory-hole the story in service of other, friendlier narrative victims to be exploited in support of the preservation of open borders. Last week alone they trotted out Columbia pro-terror agitator Mohsen Mahdawi, and misrepresented the removal of U.S. citizen children in their custody of their illegal alien mothers as “deportations.” As a result, coverage of related court rulings has also cratered.
The rest of the interview trod familiar ground: “retribution”, the “Trump 2028 hoax”, Canada/Greenland, and succession. The broadcast portion ended with a tour of Mar-a-Lago and talk of a grand ballroom.
This interview could be most charitably described as “more of the same.” Newsworthy items are overlooked in favor of the pursuit of agenda items. Ultimately, these “legacy media” interviews elicit the same question over and over: Why does Trump keep doing them? We have our answer. He enjoys the sparring.
