Man Against Lie Machine

Everything else aside, this was elemental Trump against mendacious media-ocrity

If you watch the final six or seven minutes of President Trump’s interview with Meet the Press’ Kristen Welker — one of those “award-winning” journalists of thudding mediocrity but committed mendacity —you will be reminded of the Donald Trump who in 2015 first appealed to a fallen nation’s imagination with his elemental and indomitable Americanism, that essential quality long extinct and also anathema in the circles and factions of power and leadership in this country.

The recent catalyst was January 6; specifically, Trump’s rationale behind his proposed $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, which Welker referred to as “the So-Called Anti-Weaponization Fund.” This wasn’t merely deprecating on her part; it was damage control. It is the president’ grand idea to compensate victims of the January 6 reign of terror who saw their lives, livelihoods and families “destroyed,” as President Trump accurately put it, in what the Biden/Garland/Wray FBI boasted was its largest investigation in US history. Damage control on the matter remains vital to this day because victim compensation validates grievance; grievance validates “weaponization” charges; validated weaponization charges lead to invalidating the Biden regime and validating “stolen election” charges. For the Big Lie to keep on marching on, the real victims of January 6 simply must remain invisible and/or reprobates to the public eye.

That doesn’t change reality. The J6ers’ lives, businesses, were, in fact, destroyed. Trump repeats the word, “destroyed,” five times during the course of the interview. Each time it is like a battering ram against the rank deceit — propaganda — that nothing unjust and previously unimaginable in a free society with due process ever shattered the world of these Americans. Five times the “award-winning” newswoman repeats the cover story in reply: there is “no evidence” — “no evidence” of J6 suffering, from financial ruin to family breakdown to suicide, resulting from the “weaponized” police and legal powers of the Biden regime and its sweetheart DC court system. The victims of January 6, in Welker’s words, are not victims at all; they are just “people who say the federal government weaponized the legal system against them.”

On this — the suppression of all evidence related to the government’s role in creating and prosecuting January 6 — hinges everything, which is why the Anti-Weaponization Fund becomes a matter of high-profile damage-control.

There is evidence, Trump tells Welker. There’s a lot of evidence, there’s tremendous evidence — and it is here that one wishes for better White House staffing, for that perspicacious aide who might have tucked a J6 cheat sheet into Trump’s pocket enumerating just a few examples of Americans “destroyed” by the Biden regime; perhaps the names of Matthew Perna, 37, and Nejourde Meacham, 22, two peaceful J6 protesters, who, in terror over being locked in the maw of punitive government power, took their own lives. No evidence? No evidence? The logic circuits freeze in the face of such deceit. There is evidence, there’s a lot of evidence, there’s tremendous evidence …

The FBI’s boast about its January 6 investigation, by the way, is also correct, and quite significant. It means that the FBI devoted more manpower and resources to investigating J6 “domestic terrorism” — never mind the “crimes” were mainly misdemeanors of trespassing and parading — than to any previous investigations into terrorism, espionage, drug cartels, or organized crime.

What were those fearless federales after? The official story is that the FBI was “saving the nation” — but from what? As noted, the vast majority of J6 charges were misdemeanors. The main felony charge, as Julie Kelly reported, was not “insurrection” — in fact, there were no charges of insurrection (read that again) — but rather “obstruction of an official proceeding.” Lodged against hundreds of J6ers, this charge was an obviously spurious one, albeit with a sentence of up to 20 years, making it a handy way to beef up prison sentences for rowdy “USA, USA” protestors. I say “spurious” because “obstruction of an official proceeding” is a white collar crime originally devised in the days of Enron to outlaw document destruction, and thus has no application to any form of 1A protest — as the DOJ full well KNEW and as the Supreme Court (6-3) finally ruled in 2024 ruled in Fischer.

If there were no insurrection charges in connection with January 6 — the closet thing were the 18 charges of “seditious conspiracy,” but they were trumped up too, as this personal, eyewitness account by (acquitted) “seditious conspirator” Tom Caldwell makes clear in excruciating detail — what was all the insurrection propaganda about? The question, its very premise, is verboten in politics and media in America today. The answer, however, is this: In all of its complexity, the entire operation, from the fed-manipulated rally on J6, to the mass FBI arrests across the nation, to the DOJ-DC circuit political show trials, to Gulag-like incarcerations, was activated to mask and deflect from what President Trump is also correct to call the stolen presidential election of 2020. Yes, America, as if you didn’t know, the J6 national dragnet and show trials were an illusion, a vast conspiracy to create the frenzy of “a nation under siege.” The dirty, dirty secret is, it is hard to think of anyone in Washington in a position of power or influence who did not perpetrate or go along with it.

This, of course, places Mzz Meet the Press in a protected position — inside that media and political bubble Donald Trump always threatens to burst. Even so, she blows her cool, as you will see, in what I found to be a fascinating exchange, much of it carried out by two people often speaking at the same time. That one of them is the POTUS is evidence of the other’s, the journalist’s, meltdown, even if Welker will not be able to admit that. The dialogue evolves, or devolves, into a perfect stichomythia (and this is the first time I have ever been able to use the term, which I learned a long time ago as a Yale student in Daily Themes), which Webster tells us is “a dialogue esp. of altercation or dispute delivered by two actors in alternating lines (as in classical Greek drama).”

This is the stuff of classical Greek drama — tragedy. It is a tragedy that truth in our country is controlled and defined by liars.

Now, to the interview, which you can also follow along here. Was President Trump “backing off” the “so-called” Anti-Weaponization Fund, Welker wanted to know, or would he seek a “new avenue” to bring it about? Let’s pick up the transcript with Trump’s answer.

TRUMP: Let me explain what the fund is.

People have so hurt by radical Left lawyers who work for the Biden administration and Sleepy Joe. They’re vicious, they’re violent, what they did to people; and, of course, they went after me more than anybody else, 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, they’ve lost their families, they’ve lost their wives, they’ve lost everything, they’ve lost everything, over a fake weaponization of government. Now let me just tell you —

The President has described a wasteland of American suffering, including suicide, over J6 arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations; I don’t recall hearing him speak in these vivid terms before. Rather than discuss the matter like a real journalist, Welker only repeats her question.

WELKER: So - are you looking for a way to revive it?

TRUMP: Look, 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! People have committed suicide because a bunch of thugs went after them, so —

Trump has now mentioned J6 suicides three times — but Welker doesn’t want to think of it or talk about it. But President Trump is correct again. The log of J6-connected deaths at StopHate.com, including miscarriages, includes the following suicides: Mathew Perna, 37, Nejourde Meacham, 22, Mark R. Aungst, 47, David Kennedy Homol, 55, Matthew Webler. These are just some of the casualties of the Biden regime’s “weaponization” that the collaborating media hide away.

WELKER: You don’t —

TRUMP: Me, personally? I think the Weaponization Fund is a great idea. And so do many of the 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.

While he is passionate on the subject, Trump’s political position on the matter is quite reasonable, philosophical even. Que sera, sera. However, the matter keeps turning in his mind; I wonder if it is Welker’s failure to respond or acknowledge the human toll, including suicide, that nags at him. In any case, she thinks she’s just moving things right along.

WELKER: All right, we’re going to motor through this, um —

No. Turns out we’re stopping here.

TRUMP: But you have to understand, people have been destroyed by crooked politicians, and they should be reimbursed for that.

In fact, the last thing a Kristen Welker, or a Jake Tapper, or a Christiane Amanpour has to do is understand that hundreds, thousands of non-criminal American lives were “destroyed” — ruined, broken, shattered — by the Biden regime for rallying in support of the sanctity of the vote in 2020. Nor do they have to understand that a lawful demonstration was yes, “rigged” from top to bottom, overseen and manipulated by federal, state and local assets of agitation and chaos. One recent report by Joe Henneman and Steve Baker places 274 plain clothes agents connected to the FBI alone inside the J6 crowd; the late, lamented journalist Bobby Powell put the tally at 300 embedded agents and assets. For “journalists” today, it is vital not to know any of this. It is vital not to understand the situation in toto. The most successful media mouthpieces specialize in limiting the understanding of the situation. Again, this is why they all fear and loathe Donald Trump as the eternal and unpredictable threat to their monopoly on “understanding.” And this is why Trump says they are “crooked” — even though “crooked” is only part of the story.

That said, see how Welker moves to control the story by continuing to ignore the human toll and implying that Trump and his “so-called” anti-weaponization fund are all about paying off violent criminals who attack police officers.

WELKER: Do you think anyone who attacked police officers on January 6 should get taxpayer money?

TRUMP: I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I have to see it. I can tell you this: 97 percent of those people, you look at ‘em — the FBI, or whoever it was, cuz you had a lot of crooked cops, you had dirty cops, Comey was a dirty cop

WELKER: Well, there’s no evidence

TRUMP: A guy like [unintelligible] was a dirty cop

WELKER: But there’s no evidence that

TRUMP: Wait a minute, wait a minute

WELKER: people who -

TRUMP: Oh, you think Comey was a straight cop?

WELKER: You had 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers

[NB: According to House Democrats, it was 70, not 170, who pled guilty to assaulting police officers.]

TRUMP: Comey was a dirty cop —

WELKER: No, no, but the people who assaulted police officers.

TRUMP: Listen to me. They had FBI agents ushering them into the building. They had FBI, Go into the building. Those people, walking around, they’re looking, Oh, isn’t this nice? They weren’t — .

This is the redundantly videotaped truth.

WELKER: There’s no evidence of that.

In fact, there is copious videotape evidence of that. Watch the late Matthew Perna, peacefully making his way through the Capitol building while being “ushered” by police here. Watch the late radio journalist Bobby Powell’s video of himself and others being pushed toward the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol by an apparent federal agent here. There’s hundreds of hours of such footage to watch.

TRUMP: They were being ushered into the building.

WELKER: There’s no evidence of that.

Note to White House staff: Provide Welker with Perna and Powell video clips, at the very least.

TRUMP: You had a bunch of dirty cops, and frankly

WELKER: But

TRUMP: what they did was weaponization of our government.

WELKER: But sir, there’s, there’s no evidence of that. More than 1000 people pleaded guilty to crimes

TRUMP: Oh, there’s none? You know what you do?

WELKER: Would you

TRUMP: Try looking at the tapes one time.

WELKER: Would you

TRUMP: Look at the tapes one time

WELKER: Would you take it off the table —

TRUMP: Look at the tapes one time

WELKER: OK, but 172 did plead guilty to assaulting police officers.

The 170 — which was in reality 70 — is now 172. Doesn’t matter. Trump understands what is at the root of so many of these guilty pleas and explains.

TRUMP: You know why they pled guilty?

WELKER: Should they be exempt from receiving funds?

TRUMP: Because they were told they were going to jail for 15 years if they didn’t.

Trump appears to be referring to the “terrorism enhancement,” which added up to 15 years to sentences, and which was often used as leverage to compel guilty pleas from defendants, the vast majority of whom had no arrest records.

WELKER: Should they

TRUMP: They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down, they were ushered into a building. Many of them were arrested without even going into the building.

Also true!

WELKER: Would you be okay with them receiving taxpayer dollars?

Trump pauses a fraction of a second — I bet he already sees the headline NBC later ran: “Trump doesn’t rule out giving Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police payouts from the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund” — and tries again.

TRUMP: The people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated. Now, with that being said, as I understand it, the Weaponization Fund was going to set up a group of people, uh, people that could be picked by anybody, fair people, smart people, and they will go an individual case basis.

Again, personally committed to the fund, and also politically reasonable.

WELKER: OK

TRUMP: Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Weaponization Fund. I love the idea, because people like you, the fake, dirty press, the crooked press, people like stupid Biden, he’s not smart enough to know what’s going on

WELKER: But

TRUMP: but people that surrounded him, surrounded his beautiful Resolute desk in the Oval Office, what they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people

WELKER: OK

TRUMP: They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.

WELKER: ALL RIGHT, JUST, JUST, TO BE VERY CLEAR, THERE’S NO EVIDENCE OF WHAT YOU’RE SAYING, BUT

TRUMP: THERE’S A LOT OF EVIDENCE.

Again, we’re back to the crux of the interview, not to mention the crux of the problem — and root of our tragedy. Evidence, truth, matters nothing to Marxist ideologues (whether they know they’re Marxist or not). No wonder Welker careens away. Trump, notably, will stay focused on the lies and corruption that plague us as the stichomythia cascades to the finish.

WELKER: Let me ask you about Todd Blanche

TRUMP: Listen to me

WELKER: Let me ask you about Todd Blanche.

TRUMP: Lissen to me,

WELKER: Let’s talk about Todd Blanche

TRUMP: There’s tremendous evidence, there’s nothing but evidence

WELKER: Well, it’s not been presented in a court of law

TRUMP: The election was rigged, it was a dirty election

WELKER: Mr. President

TRUMP: And it’s happening again right now in California

WELKER: You’ve never presented evidence that the 2020 election was rigged

TRUMP: It’s happening right now in California. Right now. Look at what’s happening in California

WELKER: Where is the evidence for that?

TRUMP: It’s four days

WELKER: The Republicans are doing well in California

TRUMP: In California, it’s — no they’re not, they’re dropping fast because it’s a rigged election. Let me tell ya, it’s four days and they aren’t even close to coming up with a —

WELKER: That’s how they, that’s how they count the votes in California

TRUMP: You know why they’re doing that? Because the'y’re cheating on the election.

WELKER: There’s, where’s. do you have evidence to support that?

TRUMP: All I have to do is look. All I have to do is look.

WELKER: That’s not evidence.

TRUMP: And I listen. And I listen to people.

WELKER: But

TRUMP: And let’s see what happens.

WELKER: But sir, that’s not evidence.

TRUMP: Do you think it’s appropriate

WELKER: That’s how they count the votes in California

TRUMP: Do you think it’s a appropriate that they have an election and five days later they’re nowhere close to picking a winner?

Welker was probably about to repeat, “That’s how they count the votes in California,” when a scripted fragment came to mind, and her voice momentarily resumed anchor-cadence.

WELKER: State and local officials acknowledge they are slow; they’re urging -

TRUMP: No, they’re crooked

WELKER: They are urging the votes to be counted quickly — that’s how they vote in California.

TRUMP: They’re crooked just like you’re crooked. Your press is crooked, and “Meet the Press” is crooked

WELKER: To be fair, I’m not crooked, but let’s

TRUMP: Really?

WELKER: Let’s continue

TRUMP: Well you play into their hands then.

WELKER: Let’s continue

TRUMP: You’re either crooked or you’re stupid.

You play right into their hands with this stuff. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged. You know that I won an election in landslide and I got 94 percent bad press.

WELKER: But Mr President, you’ve never presented evidence

TRUMP: You know why I got [elected]? Because you have no credibility.

WELKER: But you’ve never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let’s — I want to talk about Todd Blanche.

TRUMP: You have more evidence, there’s more evidence than ever presented.

WELKER: Let’s talk about

TRUMP: Your elections in this country

WELKER: You went to court

TRUMP: We’re like a third world country.

WELKER: But sir

TRUMP: Your elections are crooked, and you’re crooked, and “Meet the Press” is crooked,

WELKER: But Mr President

TRUMP: and so is ABC and CBS and CNN

WELKER: But Mr President

TRUMP: You’re one-sided, crooked networks. All right, let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling, have a good time.

WELKER: Mr. President — let’s — please — I traveled all the way to Wisconsin

TRUMP: I’ve sat in the rain with you

WELKER: I traveled all — I know

TRUMP: I’ve sat in the rain with you for an hour

WELKER: I traveled all the way to Wisconsin

TRUMP: On and off in the rain and I’ve given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press because you know what?

WELKER: Mr. President

TRUMP: A country can never be great

WELKER: We traveled all — listen

TRUMP: with a dishonest press

WELKER: We traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview -

Then silence. Welker is out of her chair, standing on the stage, alone.

“A country can never be great with a dishonest press.” It’s a terrific exit line — and an apt inscription for the nation’s headstone. I doubt Welker heard it because she was talking over it — not that she would understand what it means.