Trump Walked Off ‘Meet the Press’ — and Named NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN as ‘Crooked’

President Donald Trump (R) cut short a heavily promoted “Meet the Press” interview, pulled the microphone off his lapel, and walked off the set after NBC moderator Kristen Welker pressed him for evidence behind his claims about the 2020 election, the January 6 Capitol riot, and a proposed federal payout fund. Before he left, he delivered a parting shot at not one network but four.

“Your elections are crooked, and you’re crooked, and ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked,” Trump told Welker, according to NBC’s own published transcript. “And so is ABC and CBS and CNN. You’re one-sided, crooked networks.” Then: “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling.”

The interview was taped Friday, June 5, in a rain-battered barn in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, around a farm event, and aired Sunday, June 7. It is the kind of made-for-clip moment that detonates differently depending on which newsroom is holding the camera: legacy outlets ran “storms out,” “meltdown,” and a same-day fact-check; the right-leaning press ran a sitting president telling four of the country’s biggest networks, on their own airtime, that they are dishonest.

• 4 networks — Trump named as “crooked” on his way out the door — NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN · Source: NBC News transcript, June 7, 2026
• ~50 min — the interview ran in a rain-soaked Wisconsin barn before Trump pulled his mic and left · Source: Fox News Media / The Hill
• $1.8B — the proposed “anti-weaponization” fund — the question that began the unraveling · Source: Axios / Yahoo (Forbes)

By the time the cameras caught the ending, the sit-down had run roughly fifty rain-interrupted minutes — heavy rain on the barn’s metal roof was audible throughout. The exchange that ended it was about evidence. Welker asked Trump for proof of his repeated assertion that elections were “rigged.” “Do you have evidence?” she pressed after Trump called California’s elections crooked. “All I have to do is look,” Trump replied, per the transcript.

When Welker said there was no evidence for the claim, Trump escalated. “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” he told her, according to Mediaite and the Yahoo/Forbes account. He invoked the conditions of the taping — “I sat in the rain with you for an hour” — said he had “given you enough time,” and added that “a country can never be great with a dishonest press.” Then he stood, removed his lapel mic, and walked off as Welker urged him to stay: “Mr. President … I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.”

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What turned a tense interview into a media story was the breadth of the indictment. Trump did not just attack NBC, the network he was sitting with. On his way out he folded ABC, CBS, and CNN into the same sentence — the broadcast and cable competitors he has long accused of one-sided coverage. Fox News Media led with exactly that framing: “Trump storms off Meet the Press interview, rips Welker, ABC, CBS, CNN as crooked.”

It is a recurring theme of the second Trump term: rather than treat any single interview as an isolated dispute, the president routinely uses the moment to litigate the entire legacy-media ecosystem at once. Welker, for her part, kept her composure on camera and later noted that Trump agreed to a future sit-down — an acknowledgment that, for all the “crooked” talk, the relationship is transactional, not terminal.

“Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and 'Meet the Press' is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.”

President Donald Trump (R), per NBC News transcript · June 7, 2026

The unraveling did not begin with elections. It began, according to Axios and the Yahoo/Forbes account, with Welker pressing Trump on a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund — money the administration floated to compensate people who say they were unfairly targeted by a federal government that “weaponized” the justice system against them. Welker asked whether that pool could end up paying January 6 defendants.

From there the conversation slid to the 2020 election and California’s June 2 primary, where Welker noted Republicans had performed well even as Trump insisted the state’s vote was “rigged.” The interview also touched the U.S.-Iran conflict and the economy before the evidence standoff brought it to a halt. NBC published a separate, point-by-point fact-check the same day — the network’s rejoinder to the claims it could not resolve on air.

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The same fifty minutes produced two entirely different headlines. The Washington Post: “Trump walks out … when challenged over false claims.” The Daily Beast: “NBC Calls BS.” Variety and Deadline cast it as a TV blow-up. Fox News Media and the New York Post family of outlets cast it as a president calling the press dishonest to its face. The footage is identical; the chyron is editorial.

That split is the story underneath the story. For Trump’s supporters, the walkout is proof of the bias he describes — a hostile fact-check posture aimed at one party. For his critics, it is a president refusing to substantiate claims under routine questioning. Both readings can quote the same transcript, which is precisely why the clip traveled so far so fast.

“You're either crooked or you're stupid.”

President Donald Trump (R) to Kristen Welker, per Mediaite · June 7, 2026

Trump’s grievance with the broadcast networks is not new, and the choice to name four of them at once was not an accident of temper so much as a familiar move. He has spent a decade arguing that NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN cover him with a thumb on the scale, and the “Meet the Press” exit gave him a stage on which to say it — to a national Sunday-morning audience, using the host network’s own broadcast to make the case against it.

Whatever one makes of the underlying election claims — which NBC fact-checked and which Welker said lacked evidence — the media-criticism point landed exactly as intended. By Sunday afternoon the clip was the most-shared political video on every major platform, carried as far by the outlets defending the questioning as by the ones defending the president.

A president ended a marquee Sunday interview early, on camera, and used the exit to indict four of the largest news organizations in the country as “crooked.” That is a fact, on the record, in NBC’s own transcript. What it means — principled stand against a biased press, or refusal to answer hard questions — is the argument that will outlast the clip. The site’s view is the one stated at the top: name the networks, quote the words exactly, and let the reader judge.

Welker says there will be another interview. When it happens, the same dynamic will be in place: a president who treats every camera as a venue for media criticism, and a press corps that treats every claim as something to be checked in real time. Friday’s barn in Chippewa Falls was simply the latest place those two instincts collided.

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Last updated June 7, 2026