NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker possesses all the signature features of a Beltway reporter. An Ivy League graduate, East Coast native, and once-registered Democrat as far as public records show, who has spent nearly a decade living in the District covering campaigns and the White House, made Welker, 44, the perfect fit for the anti-Trump Commission on Presidential Debates to moderate the third and final match-up between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Welker, however, whose well-established family has donated thousands to the Democrat who will be on stage Thursday night, has a long track record of antagonist reporting on the Trump White House: perpetuating the Russia hoax, protecting the president’s political opponents, and engaging in the kind of Democratic-friendly D.C. media coverage that has become standard among the self-righteous journalists, which in turn has undermined the credibility of the industry. After all, she scored the endorsement of CNN’s chief White House troll Jim Acosta.
I’ve worked alongside @kwelkernbc during two admins now. She’s the consummate professional.. tough but fair. Looking forward to watching her moderate Thursday’s debate.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 20, 2020
“Mr. President, yes or no. Have you or are you now — have you ever worked for Russia? Yes or no?” Welker demanded during a January 2019 sparring match with the president. Just a short two months later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller would release his report, concluding a more than two-year investigation that found that conspiracy theories accusing Trump of operating as a Kremlin agent were just that, conspiracies and nothing more.
In 2018, Welker also charged the president with giving Russian President Vladimir Putin the “upper hand” during an overseas trip to Europe where Trump challenged nations in NATO to pay their fair share. On the same trip, Welker accused the president of being “hand in hand” with Putin.
When it comes to the far-left, four-member “Squad” in the House of Representatives, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, who are either self-proclaimed socialists or endorsed a socialist candidate, Welker has gone out of her way to downplay their extremism, calling them “self-proclaimed progressives.”
“They are not socialists,” Welker said ahead of a 2019 Trump campaign event in North Carolina.
It should come as no surprise then that Welker joined her colleagues in the mainstream media to endlessly characterize California Sen. Kamala Harris, who possesses the most leftist voting record in the upper chamber, as a “moderate.”
Nothing about Harris’ support for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, spiked tax increases, open borders, sanctuary cities, tax-payer funded health care for illegal immigrants, late-term abortion, and a religious litmus test for Catholic judicial nominations screams “moderate.”
Welker, of course, is not immune to the exhaustive wokeism now permeating the White House press corps. She’s accused the president of launching his career on birtherism, criticized the president for fanning the flames of the culture wars, and asked then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly whether she could guarantee the president had never used the “N-word.”
When it comes to coverage of Biden, Welker has shown to be far more deferential, raising further doubts about the debate moderator’s impartiality going into Thursday night. This, of course, made Welker all the more attractive to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has gone out of its way to protect Biden.
At issue this week is whether Welker will raise any questions to the Democratic nominee on stage involving the recent series of blockbuster revelations to emerge last week implicating Biden in his son Hunter’s potentially criminal overseas business activities. Former Clinton White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos completely ignored the scandal during ABC’s town hall.
A glimpse into Welker’s past, however, offers little reason to be optimistic. The NBC White House correspondent declared during the House impeachment proceedings in September last year that “there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden.”
