Rebuke or Punishment

President Donald Trump is throwing a fit about something Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker said about him. Welker will now be “reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,” according to the president. (File this under “things we actually don’t do in a country with First Amendment rights.”)

“Kristen Welker, the Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press, now considered Meet the Fake Press, just stated that Donald Trump has ‘mixed results’ on his Endorsements of Candidates, when the recent WINS of Darline Graham and Mike Mazzei, stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate, and 98% for the U.S. House, recently and over the longterm. How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?” wrote Trump on Truth Social. “Darline Graham’s run for the Senate was the biggest story in all of Politics, because she wasn’t expected to win, and then, when I Endorsed her, and she easily won, the story of her Victory was hardly covered by anybody. Likewise, the future Governor of Oklahoma, who was behind in every Poll, I Endorsed him, he won, and the story was barely covered! The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously.”

(Also: “THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA ARE OUT OF CONTROL, AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT. FCC TO THE RESCUE!”)

The president is obviously wrong to try to sic the Federal Communications Commission on pundits who say things he dislikes. This is a major abuse of state power. In a better, more libertarian world, we wouldn’t have a FCC, so there would be fewer opportunities to use the levers of the state to crack down on speech presidents take offense to.

It’s not the first time the FCC has been asked to crack down on Trump’s critics. Last year, “FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to pull ABC’s broadcast license unless it stopped broadcasting comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show,” writes Ilya Somin in The Volokh Conspiracy. “Earlier, the FCC similarly threatened CBS, which then canceled Stephen Colbert’s show (Colbert is another anti-Trump comedian). Trump now threatens to use similar tactics against other broadcasters who air shows that attack him. Even if there were good market or quality-control reasons to get rid of Colbert or Kimmel, the government has no business trying to coerce such decisions….But there is a deeper problem here: an agency that has broad power to grand or deny licenses to broadcasters is an inherent danger to freedom of speech. That’s especially true when officials hide their unconstitutional motives more carefully than Trump and Carr have done.”

Welker’s actual Meet the Press comments should be uncontroversial, in my opinion. “He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries,” Welker said, referring to the president. “He’s had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham, of course, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was successful in her primary battle, so now she takes on Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina.”

“While Graham did win her primary battle, other notable Trump-endorsed candidates have fallen short in their own bids,” reports Politico, “including Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who lost his reelection bid earlier this month to former news reporter Ryan Elijah, and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who lost his primary to former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher. Trump also backed failed gubernatorial candidates Mike Lindell (Minnesota), Megan Degenfelder (Wyoming) and Randy Feenstra (Iowa).”

A posture of curiosity as to why the Trump endorsement remains such a kingmaker in some places—notably, South Carolina—would be wise for all pundits to maintain. Too frequently when covering Trump, there’s been a palpable dismissiveness from much of the media class. It’s a symbiotic relationship: They underestimate him, sometimes with barely-veiled condescension toward his voters, and he is able to in turn galvanize more support, broadcasting how embattled he is, how biased the media is against half the country.

But you still shouldn’t use the FCC to punish speech you dislike.

---

Scenes from New York: More on the fraudulent bio of Gustavo Gordillo, New York co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.

So all of DSA’s Gustavo Gordillo’s story is a lie.

His parents didn’t even immigrate from Peru. His grandfather did and became a successful psychiatrist, married an American woman and had Gustavo’s father here who has a $90 million telecoms company.https://t.co/5IyRnmO704

— Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) August 30, 2026

---

QUICK HITS

• “About a month ago, John and Anna became aware that measles was spreading in their community. At last count, Lancaster County has recorded 210 cases so far this year. Besides John, no one in the family had been vaccinated against the virus. John told me he’d heard from someone that this strain of measles wasn’t dangerous for pregnant women, but he wasn’t sure whether to believe it,” reports The Atlantic, in a story about an Amish family who lost their newborn to measles. “Though the Amish Church has no official doctrine against vaccines, the vaccination rate among the Amish tends to be low: Last year, the state’s health department estimated that only 25 percent of the Amish community in Lancaster County had received the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.”
• “The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material,” reports The Washington Post. “Those involved include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, people familiar with the matter said.”
• “Europe has just endured a summer for the ages,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “A series of punishing heat waves shattered temperature records. Wildfires turbocharged by the heat and lack of rain decimated France and Spain and popped up in unlikely places like Wales. Rivers across central Europe nearly ran dry. England’s rolling green hills and city parks were baked brown. Crops withered, riverboats ran aground, trains derailed.”
• Provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was deported back to the U.K., and Laura Loomer may be partly to blame:

As I reported in April, I called on @RealCandaceO Candace Owens to be investigated by @DHSgov and @ICEgov @AGToddBlanche for harboring an illegal alien in her home for an “interview”.

Candace Owens allowed Milo Yiannopoulos inside her home to disparage @TPUSA and TPUSA allies… https://t.co/zaQdlPy0MV

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 28, 2026

The post Rebuke or Punishment appeared first on Reason.com.

Source: https://reason.com/2026/08/31/rebuke-or-punishment/