President Donald Trump walked out of a sit-down interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” That happened after he made, or repeated, a number of false and unsupported claims — some of which Welker pushed back on.
Trump seized on the slow vote-counting procedures in California to claim, without evidence, that its recent primary election was “rigged.”
The president falsely claimed that he “didn’t guarantee” that he’d keep the U.S. out of “new wars” in his second term. There are several examples of him making such a promise in 2024.
He claimed that Iran was “very close to having a nuclear weapon” under a multilateral agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama’s administration and wrongly said the country “got all of this uranium during Obama.” Arms control experts say Iran accelerated its uranium enrichment program after Trump withdrew from the deal.
The president also said that if he didn’t launch airstrikes against Iran in June 2025, the country would “right now have a nuclear weapon, and it could be that half of the world would be eradicated already.” That assessment is at odds with reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. Intelligence Community, which said in March 2025 that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
He provided no support for his claim that Jan. 6 rioters were “ushered into” the Capitol by “FBI agents.” A 2024 watchdog report said that FBI agents arrived to assist law enforcement after rioters had already broken into the Capitol.
Trump repeated other claims we’ve written about before regarding gasoline prices, the economy under his presidencies and construction of factories.
The interview was recorded on June 5 and aired two days later.
No Evidence of ‘Rigged’ California Elections
Trump walked out of the interview after Welker repeatedly asked him to provide evidence for his claims that the California elections were “rigged.”
The “evidence” Trump cited, however — that California had not finished counting votes several days after a June 2 primary election — is not evidence at all.
It does take California longer than other states to count ballots, but that’s because the vast majority of votes are cast via mail-in ballots, which counties send to all active registered voters. Mail-in ballots are accepted so long as they are “postmarked on or before election day” and received “no later than seven days after election day,” according to state law . That alone causes some delay.
“California has the largest number of registered voters in the nation—more than 23 million registered voters ,” according to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s website. “Ensuring that all valid votes cast by eligible voters are accurately processed and counted takes time.”
California is also one of 32 states that require signature verification for mail-in ballots, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But California also allows voters to “cure” their ballot if a problem arises in signature-matching.
“If a signature is missing or does not compare to the signature on file, state law requires county elections officials to reach out to voters to verify their signature to ensure that their ballot can be counted,” the California secretary of state website states . “By law, and for most elections, voters are allowed to verify their signature up to eight days before the county certifies their results. These processes ensure that all valid votes cast by eligible voters can be counted.”
On election night, California shares “semi-official” tallies of the votes cast in-person at the polls on Election Day, the early votes cast in person, and mail-in ballots received and processed prior to Election Day. But in close elections, that’s often not enough for election prognosticators to “call” a race for the winners.
The top two vote-getters in the primary for both governor and Los Angeles mayor — regardless of party — square off in the general election. As of the morning of June 9, the Associated Press had projected Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra would advance to the general election, but it is yet to be determined whether he will face Republican Steve Hilton or Democrat Tom Steyer. In the Los Angeles mayoral election, the Associated Press projected a day after the election that incumbent Karen Bass will be on the November general election ballot. But it wasn’t until June 8 that the AP projected Nithya Raman, a city councilwoman, would grab the second spot over reality TV star Spencer Pratt.
In his “Meet the Press” interview, Trump revived his false and unproven claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “dirty.”
Welker noted that “you’ve never presented evidence” that the 2020 election was “rigged.”
“It’s happening right now in California,” Trump said . “Right now, it’s, look at what’s happening in California.”
“Where’s the evidence to that?” Welker asked, adding that “the Republicans are doing well in California.…
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