‘You’re Either Crooked Or You’re Stupid’: Trump Walks Out On ‘Meet The Press’ Interview

BusinessMedia‘You’re Either Crooked Or You’re Stupid’: Trump Walks Out On ‘Meet The Press’ InterviewByMark Joyella,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Mark Joyella is a former broadcast journalist who covers media.Follow AuthorJun 07, 2026, 12:36pm EDTPresident Trump in an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker. The president grew angry and walked out, calling Welker "crooked."NBC NewsAn angry Donald Trump walked out of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker after an extraordinary exchange in which the president angrily insisted--without offering any proof--that “elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked…and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.”The interview, airing on NBC Sunday, turned confrontational when Welker asked Trump about his idea to use $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for a “weaponization fund” to compensate people who believe they were unfairly targeted by a federal government “weaponizing” the justice system against them.“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” Trump said. “People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it. People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them.”‘Where’s the evidence?’As the president made a series of claims about people he believed were falsely prosecuted, Welker pushed back, noting repeatedly that Trump had offered no evidence to support his claims.MORE FOR YOU“Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the weaponization fund,” Trump said as he shifted to an attack on the news media and Welker. “I love the idea, because people like you, the fake dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he's not smart enough to know what's going on, but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people. They sent people to jail wh...