NBC’s Kristen Welker has been accused of being a Democratic stooge and a biased reporter who is “terrible” at her job and will categorically be “unfair” to President Trump ahead of Thursday night’s debate.
The campaign of coordinated attacks against Welker by Trump and his allies is nothing new but has gotten increasingly nasty over the past few days.
Trump has mocked Welker’s voice and preemptively claimed the debate was rigged to favor his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
This isn’t the first time Trump has called foul. He also had a problem with the moderator of the first debate, Fox News’s Chris Wallace, and the would-be moderator of the canceled second debate, Steve Scully. Scully was subsequently suspended by C-SPAN last week after it emerged that he lied about his social media account being hacked with regards to an exchange with Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House communications director.
The goal of the newest attacks against Welker is clear: Discredit her before she even steps foot on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, the site of the second and final debate between Trump and Biden before Election Day.
But with so many accusations flying against Welker, what do voters actually know about the veteran White House correspondent and her ability to moderate the last debate fairly? The Washington Examiner takes a look at Welker’s past for clues.
Welker is the daughter of Harvey Welker, an engineer, and Julie Welker, a real estate agent.
As a child, she used to watch CBS Evening News with her father when Dan Rather anchored the show. She recalled one incident when Rather was in the field and strapped to a pole while covering a hurricane.
“My father said, ‘That’s what you have to do if you want to be a great reporter. You have to go into the eye of the hurricane,” Welker told Philadelphia Magazine in 2010.
Welker spent her childhood in Philadelphia. She graduated from Germantown Friends School, a private Quaker school, and attended Harvard University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1998. At Harvard, Welker majored in history and graduated with honors.
As a broadcast journalist, Welker has worked at ABC affiliates in Rhode Island and California. She joined NBC affiliate WCAU in Philadelphia as a reporter and weekend anchor. In 2010, Welker became a correspondent for NBC News in Burbank, California, and in December of the following year, the network named her its newest White House correspondent.
Welker can be seen regularly on MSNBC and has filled in as an anchor on NBC Nightly News.
Her stock rose at the network when she covered Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and then continued to grow as she covered the White House following Trump’s win.
“Every time I walk through the White House gates, if you don’t stop and take it in and recognize that you are a witness to history, it’s time for you, frankly, to get a new job because every minute of everything that we’re covering is history-making and, frankly, remarkable,” she told People magazine.
In January, she became a Weekend Today co-host with Peter Alexander.
Welker is married to Merck marketing executive John Hughes. The two were set up by friends in 2014. Two years later, while she was on the campaign trail with Clinton, Hughes took her to the Lincoln Memorial and proposed. The couple got married in 2017. They do not have any children.
Recently, Welker has come under fire for donations she reportedly made to the Democratic Party, as well as her alleged cushy relationship with the Obamas.
A recent Facebook post falsely claimed that Welker had donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates, is registered as a Democrat, and “spent Christmas” at the White House with the Obamas.
The Saturday Facebook post read: “Kristen Welker, of NBC, the next debate moderator chosen by the ‘unbiased’ presidential commission, gave thousands of dollars to Obama, Clinton and Biden, is registered as a Democrat (and) her family spent Christmas with the Obamas at the White House. Her mother is an activist for Biden!”
The post has been flagged as part of Facebook’s recent efforts to combat fake news and misinformation on its news feed.
Trump has leveled similar complaints against Welker’s alleged bias and has complained that Welker has “always been terrible & unfair.” He has also called her a “dyed-in-the-wool, radical-left Democrat.”
Trump’s allegations against Welker seem to stem from a New York Post story.
However, Federal Election Commission records don’t show Welker making any donations to any candidates from any party. She’s also not a registered Democrat nor has she been since 2016, according to the District of Columbia Board of Elections records.
While Welker’s parents have given money to Democratic candidates, including Biden, her mother told PolitiFact that she does not have a role in Biden’s campaign, as suggested in the Post story and by Trump and his allies.
As for Christmas with the Obamas, Welker did attend a press party at the White House, where she took a picture with the president. She did not spend the holiday frolicking with the first family. Such parties are attended routinely by White House correspondents of all political persuasions.
Welker herself has not commented on any of the allegations leveled against her and has deactivated her Twitter account.
When she takes the stage Thursday, she will become the second black woman in U.S. history to moderate a presidential debate by herself. The first was ABC News journalist Carole Simpson in the 1992 presidential race between President George H.W. Bush, then-Gov. Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot.
