NBC News’ Meet the Press admitted Sunday that anchor Kristen Welker had been incorrect to say that Vice President Kamala Harris had met the families of Americans killed in Afghanistan — though it also botched the correction.
In an interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Welker challenged the Republican over former President Donald Trump’s visit last week to Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to the 13 fallen American soldiers on the third anniversary of the terror attack on Abbey Gate at the international airport in Kabul. The Harris/Walz campaign accused Trump of politicizing the memorial, amid controversy over whether his campaign could take photos or video.
In response, the Gold Star families criticized Harris for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and for failing to call or meet with them. NBC’s Welker picked up the thread of argument with Cotton, before making an incorrect claim:
NBC’s @kwelkernbc tried to excuse the fact that Kamala has never reached out to the Gold Star families of the 13 fallen service members from Abbey Gate by saying she and Biden “met with them during the dignified transfer.”
There’s only one problem: Kamala was not in fact at the… pic.twitter.com/BJK6RmlodB
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 1, 2024
“Well, they did meet with them at the dignified transfer. They were with them at the dignified transfer,” Welker said, referring to the return of the soldiers’ remains to U.S. soil.
Later, Meet the Press posted the following correction to social media:
On our broadcast this morning, we incorrectly implied that both President Biden and Vice President Harris attended the dignified transfer of 13 American service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal. Biden was in attendance but Harris was not.
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 1, 2024
Welker had not “implied” that Harris had been there; she had stated so explicitly.
Welker moderated the final presidential debate of 2020.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.