President Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker and walked out after he was challenged on his false claims about the 2020 election and his efforts to reward political allies including rioters who sought to force Congress to overturn the election.
In an interview that aired Sunday on Meet the Press, the president said that he would be “disappointed” if Congress failed to pass nearly $1.8 billion in funding for an “anti-weaponization fund” meant to reward those targeted for prosecution by the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden.
But after clashing with Welker over his false assertions about voter fraud in 2020, which lead to the January 6 attack on the Capitol and his own prosecution, the president snapped at the anchor: “Let's call it quits, because I've had enough. Thank you, darling.”
Before that explosive moment, Trump had revived his calls for Congress to pass $1.776 billion in funding to award January 6 rioters and others who were prosecuted by the Department of Justice under Biden’s presidency, after hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol and were arrested for crimes ranging from unauthorized entry to assaulting police and even sedition.
“If it was up to me, I'd pay them the kind of money that they deserve. People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it,” Trump told Welker in a pre-recorded that aired Sunday.
“I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved. If they get it approved, that's great. If they don't get it approved, I'd be disappointed,” he added.
Trump and his allies sought to introduce the fund last month, aimed at providing payouts to people federally prosecuted under the Biden administration including the hundreds of Americans convicted of crimes related to January 6.
The fund was challenged in federal court and temporarily halted by a judge. The ensuing uproar among Republicans over the unpopular measure also caused acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to declare that the Trump administration was backing down.
Blanche told lawmakers this week that the fund was “not moving forward.” In a court filing on Friday, government attorneys said the administration “will not” revive the fund.
But Trump showed no signs of that in his interview with Welker, and instead clashed with the anchor over whether he provided “evidence” of his claims about the 2020 election as part of his efforts to overturn the results.
“You're either crooked or you're stupid,” he told Welker at one point.
Trump also claimed during his Meet the Press interview that the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago was an example of the Biden administration’s overreach. He was investigated after leaving the White House in 2021 for allegedly concealing or improperly withholding White House documents.
“They went after me more than anybody else,” Trump told NBC. “They raided Mar-a-Lago and all the other things. But people have been badly hurt. They've committed suicide. They've lost their jobs.”
The interview also focused significantly on Trump’s war with Iran, with the president directly threatening the use of military force to secure Iran’s remaining reserves of enriched uranium. Arguing that the dangers of not halting Iran’s nuclear program were too important to ignore, Trump refused to say whether fuel prices had peaked and denied that he has gone back on campaign promises by launching the war.
“I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war,” he told Welker.
“The way you [secure the nuclear material] is if we make a deal, if we make a deal now we’re friendly, we’ll all go together,” he said. “It’ll be our equipment. We’ll take [the nuclear material] out and destroy it....Now, if we don’t make a deal, then we’re going to take them out militarily very harshly.”
He eventually ended the interview early and stormed off after a heated back-and-forth with Welker, telling her: “You're a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”
The budget reconcilation package that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement for three years is now in the House after passing the Senate early Friday. Senate Republican lawmakers revolted over the president’s desire for the fund, warning that the ICE bill would not pass with it attached.
Republicans confronted Blanche over the issue at a contentious meeting before the Memorial Day holiday last month, and eventually passed the reconciliation package through the Senate without funding for the payouts.
The “slush fund” has been met with fierce resistance in Congress, and Republican leadership in the Senate spent hours last week defeating Republican-led attempts to add language to the reconciliation package restricting the White House from implementing the fund at all. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick has threatened to force a vote on a similar measure as the bill moves to the House.
"The votes are not there, and will not be there, to give a dime to this fund,” Fitzpatrick said Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell derided the idea as “utterly stupid” in a statement after members met with Blanche last month.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick,” the former GOP leader said.
McConnell’s onetime counterpart Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, reveled in the issue’s ability to divide the Republican caucus as lawmakers debated the reconciliation package.
“Republicans are in complete disarray, they’re at each other’s throats and the American are suffering for it,” he said last month. “Republicans have tied themselves up in knots and torn each other to shreds over Trump’s brazenly corrupt slush fund for his billionaire cronies and January 6 insurrectionists.”
