Bulwark Takes - Trump Wants the FCC to “Punish” NBC's Kristen Welker for Telling the Truth

Episode Date: August 30, 2026

Sam Stein and Ben Parker unpack a brutal 24 hours for press freedom: Trump threatening Kristen Welker with the FCC, journalists barred from G20 Treasury access, a leaked Pentagon assessment on Iran drawing threats against reporters, and big tech's silent complicity as DHS bypasses judges to subpoena journalists' data.

Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor to Bullock, and I'm joined by Ben Parker, who is my co-pilot, really, on the editing front. We're here to talk about a pretty atrocious day of attacks on the press and free speech from the Trump administration. I know it seems like every day is atrocious, but there's been four, maybe five examples in the past 24 hours that in any normal administration, we would be apoplectic, but because the Overton windows move so much with Trump, these just come fast and furious.

Ben, I'm going to start with the Kristen Walker one. So basically, meet the press. Kristen Walker is the host. She has her Sunday program. Trump clearly is obsessed with it. And after she was done today, the president puts out a bleat, and I'm going to read part of it because it's incredibly long. But it goes like this.

Kristen Walker, the unpopular hostess, he puts that in quotes, of the ones great meet the press, now considered meet the fake. press just stated that Donald Trump has, quote, mixed results on his endorsements of candidates when the recent wins of Darlene Graham and Mike Mazzie stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate and 98% for the U.S. House recently and over the long term. Okay, this is normal stuff for Trump, but then here we go. How can anyone be allowed to say this working for freely given public airwaves?

Results are attached. Because of this purposefully, purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment. Look, I don't even think Welker said this necessarily, but whatever, that's not the point. Secondarily, there have been mixed results. I know he's putting out these stats at 98%. So, like, that's just in the primaries, but he has had notable losses. But obviously, the big thing here is, I don't like what you said on your airwaves.

I'm going to be reporting you to the cops. And as everyone knows, Brendan Carr, who chairs the FCC, is just absolutely good. going to do Trump's bidding? Yeah, I mean, there's a few things going on here. One of them is, even if someone said something, even if Trump is right that the airwaves are public property and that's sort of a regulatory matter, not an actual property matter, whatever I don't know, not a lawyer, even if he's right, the fact that she said something that the president himself doesn't like doesn't mean that it's bad for the country. This is once again, Trump saying, if it belongs to America, the United States, it belongs to me, Donald Trump, and not differentiating

himself between, like, what's good for the country, what's good for him personally. And also, yeah, like, there is a well-established principle that the government is not supposed to do things just because the president feels like it. They're supposed to have good reasons. And Trump, this is just like, example, one million, doesn't seem to care. He's saying, like, nope, you got me mad, so you're going to face an administrative hurdle. That is not super legal and certainly not how the government is supposed to work. Yeah, 100%. I mean, this is exactly what is happening here, which is that Trump thinks that if it's bad for Trump, it's bad for the country, and therefore it's deserving of a regulatory matter.

I know Brendan Carr is a total lackey. Now, what usually happens is that he threatens something and it goes nowhere. But the threat itself is the story. Whether or not Carr falls soon or a car probably put out a statement saying, oh, it, Mr. President, nothing will happen. We shouldn't live in a society where journalists feel threatened or that they feel like they have to hold back on accurate reports. for fear that the administration and the president's going to sick his regulatory guards on you.

It's detestable. NBCPR has put a statement saying, Kristen is one of the best in the business, and we stand by her succinct to the point. And look, if this was one thing, you know, we could just sort of chalk it up to Trump just being crazed and having a day on Sunday. But this is time and again, especially in the last 24 hours. So there's a couple stories that have caught my interest. The New York Times reported yesterday that the Treasury Department is denying G20 credentials to specific reporters from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, including New York Times Treasury reporter on Rappaport.

He's covered the department since like 2017. They defended the exclusion saying access comes with responsibility, report information consistent with, quote, established journalistic standards. There are 300 other journalists are being admitted. Trump also had a grotesque tweet about Maggie Haberman, who is probably, the most accomplished Trump chronicler in the business. So they're just picking and choosing who to go after, and they're making a big stink of going after the New York Times.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, because I have like three other stories, Ben. Yeah, no, real quick, I just, the idea that the Trump administration is giving a lecture about proper journalistic standards is just laughable. I mean, come on, of all the people to listen to a lecture about how journalism works, like the Trump administration is pretty far down that list.

And I do want to say just one other thing about the G-22. which is this is a mistake the administration keeps on making, which is they think that if they cut off access to the media, the bad news will go away. First of all, it won't. It'll find a way out. We'll talk about that in a minute. But also, like, we're having trouble right now.

Scott Besson, specifically the Treasury Secretary, is having trouble with the bond market and people believing that it's worth buying American debt. If he says you're not allowed to cover the Treasury meeting or the Treasury of the G20, is that going to make people more or less likely to trust the government? Like, they're making the problems they have created worse because, but by trying to cover it up. Like, it is a feedback loop of bad policy. That's a really valid point.

And I don't think they get it, which is that they lose credibility. And so when they want accurate information out there, no one's going to believe anything they say, which is problematic for obvious for instance. All right, a couple of other stories that really jumped out of me. The Post this morning has this big exclusive, pretty from the people who cover the Defense Department and people who've served in the Defense Department, they think this is shocking in terms of the magnitude of the leak. It reads like this. Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth that prolonged, large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland. That's according to people familiar with

a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon Chief. The warnings appear in the August 14th edition of the Secretary of Defense Order's book, SDOB. These people said they describe the assessment to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity because the document is classified. So this is a serious leak. It's the leak summarizing a classified document. The Pentagon did not take this particularly well. Infantry Dort, who is a active military official, who our colleague Will Summer wrote about,

who's part of this cadre of online provocateurs that apparently employed by Pete Higgseth to stir shit up. He literally accused them of the reporter. He says, another day, another piece of undermining your countrymen in hopes that they are killed so you can get another headline. He accused the Washington Post of wanting service members killed, okay? Defamatory shit. And then there's Sean Parnell, who is Heggseth's top spokesperson, press person. He tweets, publishing highly classified assessments for the secretary's order's book is a crime.

It's a betrayal of the force. And much of what they're publishing is inaccurate. Of course, we demand candid military advice. non-concursor standard. The secretary sees them constantly. That's how you run a real military. So infantry door is defamatory. Parnell hilariously basically confirms the validity of the story and then says that it's a crime.

So again, though, this is madness. I mean, they're threatening to go after these reporters on legal grounds and accusing them to see people die. Yeah. What's amazing here is that they're sort of running out of people to go after. if you look at just some of the names that were mentioned in this report about some of the officers who delivered the assessment, that we can't keep the status quo in Iran going. One of them, the name that stuck out to me the most, Admiral Cottle, the Chief of Naval Operations, he was the one who we just learned a couple of weeks ago was giving Heggseth political advice when he was going through confirmation so that Cottle could win this job. He was being very political in a completely inappropriate way to get the job he's now in. And he's not saying, yeah, no, we can't keep this going.

Another one, General Grinkevich, or Grinkevich, I'm not sure of the prentiation, who I believe has only been in his role as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and Commander of European Command to 2025, General Donovan in Southern Command, where we have all those boat strikes going on. He was on this list. And Admiral Paparo of Pacific Command, recently renamed from Indo-Pacific Command, who's got to deal with China. And these are all people saying, like, hey, you know, you can't keep this going forever. as you said, the Pentagon spokesman who may be on the shortlist to be the next secretary of the army basically confirmed this is true. And yeah, by the way, leaking this is a crime.

And the fact that it's such a secret and sensitive documents suggest that that leak is coming from somewhere very high up and has some people with a lot of responsibility very, very concerned. Yeah, I mean, yes, the league of classified information is a crime. The journalist publishing it is part of the job. And so they should turn their attention on their own people. The last story I want to talk about, which, I mean, relative to the others, I guess it's, well, it is a big deal, but it might not have stuck out as much. But it really bothered me, which was this Guardian story. And basically, what it gets at is the acquiescence of big tech to the administration. And I'm going to have a little rant after I read this, so bear with me.

So they write, the Trump administration has been deploying an obscure, legal maneuver to try to obtain private information on journalists, nonprofits, and unions, raising alarm over power the government has asserted without judicial oversight. Okay. So they said in February this year, federal prosecutors twice sought search warrants for account information for the YouTube channel of Georgia Fort, Minneapolis journalist, and another journalist, Don Lemon, who everyone knows, both of them have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in connection to a protest at the Minneapolis church in January. Judge twice rejected the requests, okay? But, About a month after the judge's ruling late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request,

but officials hadn't given up on getting the data. Less than a month later, DHS served Google with far different requests for the YouTube information. This time, DHS utilized a different method that didn't require approval from a judge, only the sign-off from a DHS official. It served Google with an administration summons, signing this arcane provision. The provision gives DHS broad power to inspect records. DHS summons was issued under the statute that does not give the agency broad-power. to demand records, but only in limited circumstances of being there in need to investigate a customs issue. All right. People are outraged by this, and they should be. I'm outraged by this because

all the big tech folks, chief among them, Mark Zuckerberg, and that is not in this story. Okay, so I'm going to just be clear. But chief among them was Mark Zuckerberg, had a big old stink about how the Biden administration was trampling on free speech, primarily because they were trying to get COVID disinformation off the big tech sites. And in the case of meta, Facebook, they reached out privately, the Biden administration and said, hey, there's a bunch of vaccine disinformation on your site. Can you take it off? And Mark Zuckerberg held this up as an example of horrific infringement on free speech, so much so that he justified becoming sort of a magite because of it. I've not heard a single fucking word from any of these big tech giants as they do

this. They are issues. issuing subpoenas for their records going around the need for a judicial sign-off. And none of the big tech people are saying, hey, this is an infringement. This is trampling on free speech. Nothing. And this gets to my bigger picture, which is people in real power have acquiesced. I'm glad that the NBC stood up for Christian Welker as they should. I'm really glad that the New York Times doesn't take shit from the Trump administration

because they should. But too often, people like Bezos and Zuckerberg and these big tech companies, they're just willing to get along. And it's a shame and it exposes them as just absolutely hypocrites. That's my rant. No, I think I agree with everything you just said. Good rant, fully endorse. And if anything, it just underscores the need for independent media like the bulwark.

And so people should support us, become a bulwark plus member at thebulwork.com. Yeah, all right. Well, I hear you, Ben. I was going to do the plug myself. People should, in fact, support the bulwark. It's important. Independent media matters. media that actually stands up for the First Amendment and actually stands up to the Trump administration matters in this moment.

So if you haven't done already, subscribe to our feet or subscribe to our substack, support the mission. And thanks for tuning in. I appreciate it. Take care, Ben.