How Not To Interview a Trump Shill

I thought I was inured to the sight of Donald Trump and his apologists steamrolling through TV interviews with misinformation and misdirection. But there was something transcendently awful about Elise Stefanik’s appearance on Meet the Press a couple of weeks ago. 

Start with the eerily immobile grin affixed to her face as the New York congresswoman was being introduced by host Kristen Welker — not a muscle moved for 15 seconds — and the calculated perkiness of her “Great to be with you, Kristen,” to start the interview. The media advisers have been hard at work.

Then there was her rote regurgitation of all the Trump talking points as she deflected Welker’s questions: The real threat to democracy is not Donald Trump, but Joe Biden; the efforts by some state courts to throw Trump off the ballot are “a suppression of the American people.”  If Republicans in Congress force a government shutdown, it will be the Democrats’ fault, because they “would rather shut down the government than secure the border.” As for Trump’s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” no quarrel there — illegal immigrants are indeed “poisoning Americans through fentanyl.” As rhetorical distractions go, that one’s a classic. 

But the performance on the other side of the desk was nearly as exasperating. By now it has become clear that Kristen Welker, who replaced Chuck Todd as host of Meet the Press in September, is not cutting it. I often got annoyed at Todd’s rambling, halting, often imprecise questioning. But he could roll with the punches and had a sure instinct for political bullshit. Welker’s polished, well-manicured TV presence may have been fine in short bites as White House correspondent on the nightly news. But forced to wing it with glib political guests in real time, she has been unsteady and grating.

She certainly comes well prepared — with notes and carefully scripted questions and potted rebuttals when an answer strays from the facts. (“We should note there’s no evidence that President Biden is in any way coordinating with the Justice Department….”) But her unctuous manner, verbal tics (“To put a fine point on it,”her favorite phrase), and dramatic flourishes to signal that a “gotcha” question is on the way have done little to penetrate the Trump crowd’s armor.

I can think of no worse way, for example, to open up the topic of Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation, precipitated by Stefanik’s grilling at a congressional hearing, than to ask, “What was your reaction when you heard she was resigning?” Or, after letting Stefanik ride her moral high horse for a couple of excruciating minutes, building up to this curveball: “What do you say to your critics who’ve argued that you’re holding these university presidents to a higher standard than former President Trump?” The subject for a weekend op-ed piece, maybe, but way too easy for Stefanik to foul off into the stands. 

At another point, Welker played a clip of Stefanik’s speech in Congress on January 6, when she called it “a truly tragic day for America,” and asked whether she stood by that statement. There was no way of avoiding the diversionary barrage that followed: calling NBC biased for pulling one sentence out of context; harping again on the need for “election integrity”; and expressing “concerns about the treatment of the January 6 hostages.” Another dead end — for the interviewer, but not the interviewee. 

Welker, of course, is facing the same problem that every TV interviewer faces in trying to combat the rhetorical obfuscations that have become a hallmark of the Trump era. The evasions, lies, and distractions simply come too fast and furious for a journalist to call them out in real time. 

But somehow interviewers need to loosen up the rules, find ways of throwing their subjects off their game, stop trying to argue facts with people who don’t accept any. A little sarcasm, or at least some of the irreverence that the late-night comedians are bringing to the political discourse, might be in order. Just off the top of my head: 

“Thank you for accurately repeating Donald Trump’s talking points. Would you like to add any of your own thoughts?”

“I understand why you now won’t call January 6 a tragic day. But why on earth would you have called it that back then?” 

 “Congresswoman, are you a robot?”

I would probably get retired from the show faster than I’m hoping Kristen Welker will be. But it would be fun while it lasted.