FCC Commissioner Calls Trump’s Comments On Kristen Welker A ‘Dangerous’ Threat To The Press

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says President Trump's repeated suggestions that journalists should be punished for saying things the president doesn't like "undermine the foundation of our democracy" and "these threats to press freedom are dangerous."

Trump has long attacked reporters as "enemies of the state," and he was angered Sunday by NBC's Kristen Welker, who said on Meet the Press that the president has had "some mixed results" with his endorsements of Republican candidates headed toward the decisive midterm elections.

'She will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment'

Calling Welker "the Unpopular 'Hostess' of the once great Meet the Press," Trump insisted his endorsed candidates had won 100% of contests for the U.S. Senate and 98% for the House. "How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves," he asked in a post on his Truth Social platform. "Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment."

Gomez, the only Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, used her own post to remind the president that "the FCC has no authority to punish journalists this administration doesn't like."

Gomez has pushed back against the administration before, including speaking out about the FCC itself when Trump called on the FCC to target ABC for comments made by late night host Jimmy Kimmel.

"The FCC is once again targeting an administration critic by mob rule. Let's not pretend this FCC hasn't already made up its mind. All they want is for their pro-censorship partisan allies to nod in agreement. My message to Disney: Don't flinch. Fight," Gomez said in a post on X in May.

Gomez recently told The Hollywood Reporter that she hopes to be reconfirmed for another term as FCC commissioner--hers technically ended in June--as she believes it's essential that the commission remain a bipartisan body rather than a tool for the president to weaponize against his enemies.

" ​​I think it's important that we maintain somebody that pushes back against this administration's overreaches," she said.

As for Welker's comment that Trump has had a "mixed" record of endorsing candidates, it all depends on how you crunch the numbers. According to Ballotpedia , the president has endorsed 332 candidates in 2026, with a 96% success rate in primaries to date. Many were low-stakes races, and Trump missed with endorsements in far more consequential races, like his endorsement of Burt Jones for governor of Georgia and Randy Feenstra for governor of Iowa--both of whom lost their primary races.

Going back to last year, Trump's success rate with endorsements dropped to just 43%, with notable misses including the New Jersey governor's race and Trump's endorsement of Andrew Cuomo, who lost the New York City mayor's race to Zohran Mamdani.