President Trump’s call on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to crack down on NBC's “Meet the Press” after host Kristen Welker said the president has a “mixed record” on endorsements this year is a new political headache for GOP…
Page A2From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 1 September 2026
Trump orders FCC to crack down on NBC as a Florida Republican deletes him from her campaign site
As it ran on the front
Let's call the FCC letter what it is. Trump's call for the FCC to crack down on NBC isn't a stray tweet, it's an official request that a federal regulator lean on a network because Kristen Welker asked a question he didn't like. They'll tell you it's about 'fairness,' the same word they use every time somebody in power wants the referee on their side of the field. Nobody at a real press conference asks the umpire to eject the other team's beat reporter. That's not oversight, that's a strike suit with a badge.
Now look two doors down. A Florida Republican running for a U.S. House seat quietly went into her own campaign website and pulled the major pro-Trump material. Not a statement, not a press release explaining a 'shift in priorities.' Just — gone. The kind of edit you make at 11 p.m. hoping nobody's refreshing the page. If the man is such an asset, if the base loves him as much as the leadership claims, you'd think a Florida Republican would be bragging about him on page one, not scrubbing him off page one.…
…(cont) Here's the con: you're being sold a unified party with one hand and shown a party in witness protection with the other. The same week the president is trying to get federal muscle behind a news anchor's coverage of him, his own candidates are treating his endorsement like a liability that needs quiet legal cleanup before the filing deadline. That's not loyalty, that's actuarial. Somebody ran the numbers on that district and decided the brand doesn't test well anymore, and they made the call before the polling firm even had to say it out loud.
What's the stakes for the guy at the end of the bar? You're being asked to believe two contradictory things on the same ballot — that this man commands the party, and that the party is hiding him. Pick one. Because the pattern here isn't about one anchor or one website, it's about what happens when the people closest to the numbers stop pretending in public. The regulators get the letter. The voters get the quiet edit. Only one of those two audiences gets told the truth.
“The guy pushing federal regulators to lean on a news anchor can't get his own party's candidates to keep his name on their websites. That's not a coincidence, that's a poll number. When your own team scrubs you before Election Day, the FCC letter isn't about fairness, it's about cover.”
“This is simply the president holding biased coverage accountable, nothing more — the FCC has every right to review broadcast standards. As for the Florida candidate, campaign websites get updated for all sorts of — well, they get updated. That's not distancing, that's just, uh, website maintenance. Did I say that? That's not really what website maintenance means.”
The receipts
EXCLUSIVE — Former Florida state Rep. Mike Beltran removed prominent mentions of President Donald Trump from his campaign website after winning the GOP primary for Florida’s 14th Congressional District. Ahead of Beltran’s crowded primary…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.