The moment that NBC announced Kristen Welker would be interviewing Donald Trump for her inaugural show as moderator of Meet the Press, the criticism started rolling in. Many were upset that she’d be sitting with Trump at all, and many were just upset about the format of the interview.

Peter Baker, a panelist on the show, even addressed the controversy on air, saying “Now, obviously the challenge for us because he is just going to spout out one thing after another, in fact, I mean, real-time is a real hard thing. But what you’ve done here is edit it and make sure people understand what’s real and what’s not.”

But Mary Trump, the niece of the former President and one of his harshest critics, had even more theories and criticisms.

Mary suggested that both CNN earlier this year and NBC in the case of MTP had made serious concessions to Trump in order to secure an interview with him. She even pointed out how many times Welker called Trump “Mr. President” during the interview:

“Much like CNN’s disastrous “town hall” in May of this year, the Meet the Press “interview” moderated by Kristin Welker never should have happened. Both were train wrecks that most of us could see coming from several light-years away.

It appears both CNN and NBC approached Donald with the idea, which suggests the networks were in the weaker negotiating position from the beginning, giving Donald most of the leverage. From CNN he got the moderator, the format, and the audience he wanted. Based on Sunday’s travesty, NBC followed [and] gave him much of what he wanted as well.

To kick the interview off, Welker refers to Donald as “Mr. President” twice (we don’t yet know if this obsequiousness was voluntary or one of the concessions NBC made to him). She then asks him why he’s running for president again.”

Addressing former presidents as “Mr. President” or “President (Last Name) is correct. When former President Barack Obama was interviewed by NPR in 2020, he was addressed as “Mr. President” once, while on 60 Minutes, he was called “Mr. President” five times. In his 60 Minutes interview, current President Joe Biden was called “Mr. President” nine times.

According to the transcript of the full 78-minute Meet the Press interview, Welker called Trump “Mr. President” 82 times.

While we understand Mary Trump’s frustration, it could be that she hasn’t seen the heavily edited first ten minutes of the MTP interview, during which Welker pushed back hard on Trump’s lies. Once she sees that, she may change her tune somewhat.

Read Mary Trump’s full takedown HERE.