Our expectations for President Donald Trump's sense of decorum have never been high, but even by his standard, he's outdone himself. In an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press that aired Sunday, the president managed to distort the facts of record, sling insults and throw a spectacular temper tantrum unfitting of his office. Much of the first half of the interview danced as ...

President Trump walked out of an interview with‘ Meet the Press’ host Kristen Welker, right, that aired Sunday, June 7, 2026, on NBC.

Adam Bettcher/NBC/NBC/TNS

Our expectations for President Donald Trump's sense of decorum have never been high, but even by his standard, he's outdone himself.

In an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press that aired Sunday, the president managed to distort the facts of record, sling insults and throw a spectacular temper tantrum unfitting of his office.

Much of the first half of the interview danced as close to the edge of normal as Trump is likely to get, with Welker pressing the president on the Iran war. As politicians are likely to do, he dodged around and only sometimes answered questions directly, infusing his responses with his trademark, pugnacious style.

As the interview progressed, though, things went thoroughly off the rails.

Trump defended his $1.8 billion slush fund intended to cover legal costs for people deemed victims of "weaponization and lawfare," and said he wanted to get it approved.

That led into a conversation about rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and whether Trump thought they should be able to get a taxpayer-funded payout, which the president seemed perfectly open to.

"People were destroyed by dirty cops, and by weaponization. Many of those people should be compensated," Trump said.

Trump claimed that those who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers only did so because they were frightened into it.

To pretend that the violence at the Capitol was a figment of the nation's imagination and that those who perpetrated it were, in fact, the real victims, is as insulting as it is insane. Sadly, it's also not an unusual line to take in today's GOP.

Later, Trump claimed that elections happening in California are rigged. Welker asked the president if he had any proof. "All I have to do is look, and I listen," Trump responded.

It was shortly after this that the most powerful man in the world went on his temper tantrum, railing against the crooked press and all the negative treatment he gets in it.

He made wild claims that Welker's network knows all about the election rigging, and insulted her straight out.

"You're either crooked or you're stupid," Trump said.

He cut the interview off abruptly shortly thereafter.

"Thank you darling," he said to Welker in a sarcastic tone.

In Trump's world, everyone is wrong if they do not agree with him and corrupt if they do not coddle him. The facts are fungible and history is as he tells it.

Somehow, we've reached a point where it isn't unreasonable to expect a toddler to behave with more decorum than the leader of the free world.

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