'Stop right there': MS NOW host pinpoints exact moment Trump interview flew off the rails

MS NOW's Mika Brzezinski analyzed a contentious interview by NBC's Kristen Welker that ended when President Donald Trump stormed out after a flurry of lies about his 2020 election loss.

The pre-recorded interview aired Sunday on "Meet the Press" and showed the 79-year-old president lashing out at Welker when she pushed him to provide evidence of election fraud, calling her "crooked" and "stupid," and he eventually stood up, yanked out his earpiece and patted her on the shoulder as he walked off.

"One can become overwhelmed," Brzezinski said, "so let's just go back to the beginning where he said those folks were ushered in by the FBI, and let's stop right there. Let's stop right there. Let's bring it up, because then he continued to lie more and lie more and lie more, and then you get overwhelmed or frustrated, and then he's lied for two or three minutes. Stop right there, lying to the American people. Those folks had zip ties, they had a noose, they had weapons. In some cases, they defecated at the Capitol, in the halls. They're criminals who were convicted of their crimes."

"I know the president pardoned them because, for some reason, in his twisted thinking that these people deserve something more than what they got, many of them have gone out to commit more crimes since they've been pardoned," she added. "Republicans and Democrats alike were running for their lives."

The "Morning Joe" co-host acknowledged that Welker faced a steep challenge the exchange, but Brzezinski said she would have ended the interview when Trump started lying, just as host Joe Scarborough had in an interview during the 2024 campaign.

"Everybody has different interviewing styles, and that was absolutely a great, great, great effort," she said. "But I would stop at the first lie. I wouldn't allow any lies on my program. Joe certainly hung up on the president when he was running for office and started lying, just hung up on him because you can't have lies, and then this is, some would argue, a strategy, you know, beat up the media and so the base can get all excited to see him calling Kristen Welker stupid."

"You don't allow it," Brzezinski continued. "We can't have a complicit media. We can't be involved at all with spreading lies. We can't watch him tell lies and not call them out right away and stay with that first one, because they're all lies. Everything that was said in there, we could go through each one and show how it's a lie. But what he likes is that moment where everyone gets flustered and watches this drama play out while the president takes something that was twisted, sick and criminal that happened at our nation's Capitol."

"Show the video, you can show the video of the cop getting squeezed in the door, being injured," she added. "You can hear that. Is that the FBI ushering them in or is that a cop getting very injured and is life threatened, and I believe at the same time that this was happening, American flags and Trump flags were used to gore people and bash people and bash through windows and commit vandalism and try and interfere with the nation's electoral process."

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