AP Photo/Julio Cortez
Kristen Welker has booked the most newsworthy person as a guest for her first episode hosting NBC’s Sunday morning franchise Meet the Press: Former President Donald Trump.
Welker was announced as the successor of Chuck Todd on Meet the Press earlier this year; her first show will air this coming Sunday. Mediaite has learned the interview with Trump will be a pre-taped one-on-one, allowing extensive fact-checking. Unlike CNN’s widely-derided town hall with Trump, which threw off a lot of news but even more controversy, this will not be a live interview or forum format.
Meet the Press has long held the tradition of hosting discussions and debates with members of each party. Welker landed the highly-coveted moderator chair after earning high marks for the job she did moderating a presidential debate between then-candidate Joe Biden and Trump in 2020.
Executive Producer David P. Gelles spoke of interviewing Trump in a chat with Poynter, saying, “We are in the business of covering politics. It’s not our job to pick and choose the leaders. The American people get to do that. And so our job is to make sure that the American people understand who the people in power are, what they stand for, and what they plan to do.”
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