Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow agreed Thursday that President Trump owes their colleague Kristen Welker an apology after her largely lauded performance as moderator during the final presidential debate.
For days, the president had been preemptively criticizing the NBC White House correspondent, calling her “terrible & unfair” and a “radical Democrat.”
“She’s owed an apology by the president, who attacked her over and over and over again heading into this event tonight. Trying to work the refs, trying to intimidate her. Clearly, Kristin Welker was not intimidated,” Maddow said during MSNBC’s post-debate coverage after Williams suggested “someone” owed her apology.
CRITICS PRAISE NBC’S KRISTEN WELKER, DECLARE HER ‘BEST 2020 DEBATE MODERATOR’
Maddow added that Welker was the “clear winner” of the debate between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden because she did an “incredibly professional, cogent, coherent job.”
Trump has been highly critical of reporters and debate moderators in recent weeks, including Fox News’ Chris Wallace who moderated the first debate, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, who moderated his town hall last week and CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl who he said conducted a “vicious” interview with him set to air on Sunday. Trump released unedited footage of the interview earlier Thursday.
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Welker’s questions were widely seen as tough but fair to both men and at one point in the debate Trump told the journalist, “So far, I respect very much the way you’re handling this.”
