In the nearly three hours of pre-inauguration coverage after Today, NBC pitched a few small fits over their party falling out of power, ranging from insisting President Trump’s belief in there being only two genders (male and female) and opposing Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are divisive, and comparing Trump’s definition of “fairness” to that of a “toddler.”
NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt cued up Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker to explain one of Trump’s expected executive order “regarding diversity initiatives.”
Welker explained the two before somehow claiming opposing transgenderism and wokeism in business and education present tenuous positions. Today co-host Savannah Guthrie interjected as well to spell out DEI:
WELKER: The first one that we’re told President-Elect Trump is going to sign today is going to make it federal law that there are two sexes, male and female and will seek to end federal funding or recognition of gender identities. Second one targeted DEI initiatives, it aims to end any federal funding for DEI initiatives. Why is this significant? First of all, politically speaking these are not his most popular positions and issues. Americans are sharply divided on this. Sharply divided over whether dei initiatives should be cut. Sharply divided over whether the government is striking the right balance on how to deal with —
GUTHRIE: The DEI — just so — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
WELKER: — yes, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Thank you, Savannah. Very good point.
GUTHRIE: Well, just a — so — efforts to make a more equitable workplace —
WELKER: Yes.
GUTHRIE: — but they’ve become controversial.
To Welker’s approval, Holt bizarrely asserted Trump wasn’t “necessarily...elected” on issues of race but rather solely “the economy, inflation, immigration.”
“They were a part of his stump speech, certainly they were a part of this cultural campaign that he ran, but you’re right. His biggest issues were the border and the economy. But these are issues that also help to energize his base but, again, nationally speaking, there are sharp divides around these issues,” Welker replied.
Earth to NBC: What was the point of and the success of the Trump campaign’s transgender they/them ad?
Next, senior White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell and chief Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson joined the conversation to cue off on Biden’s stubbornness to avoid stepping down and how history, on this, won’t necessarily look kindly on him (click “expand”):
JACKSON: [Biden] also says in the next breath when asked if he could have the vigor to serve for four more years said he didn’t know and you get the sense of watching —
GUTHRIE: He said it more colorfully than that. He said who the hell knows.
JACKSON: — you get the sense watching him here, this is not — and I think we know this — this is not a person who wants to be leaving the white House. He wanted four more years. He did. And his wife, the First Lady wanted four more years. She believes her husband could do it. She’s been one of the staunchest defenders.
GUTHRIE: Kelly may get to pull rank as the longest serving Capitol Hill and Joe Biden for the longest. I think you will agree he has wanted — he had wanted to be President for pretty much the entirety of his 50 year career of public service.
O’DONNELL: Once you attain that office, it’s hard to leave it. It’s hard to ever see yourself as not being capable of continuing. I think that has influenced a lot of what we’ve seen publicly, that his own belief whether polling or the views of the country support that or not. He will always be the 46th president of the United States and so, that he hangs on to. Donald Trump is also someone who has a hospitality business so he has no trouble making small talk and no trouble going through these ceremonies.
HOLT: And Joe Biden likes to tell a story as well.
O’DONNELL: Oh, indeed he does.
WELKER: I do think that his decision, the timing of when he decided to pass the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris will be a part of his legacy. It will be a part of how history grapples with how Joe Biden is remembered. He promised he campaigned on being a transitional president and when that moment came, bolstered by big wins in the primaries, did he not pass the baton.
To their credit, Guthrie went onto say 2025 marks “a time of soul searching for Democrats” after having been “handed a resounding defeat at the polls” while Welker concurred they haven’t settled on a strategy of opposition and, worse yet for them, “[n]o one can answer that question: who’s the leader of the Democratic Party?”
Fast-forward to the 11:00 a.m. hour just prior to the official start of the ceremonies and there was a lament from Holt about how Trump views the word “fairness”: “And, Kristen, you’ve talked in your conversations with the President-Elect, he talks about fairness. He’s apparently going to talk about fairness in his speech today. What is his definition of fairness? I think that’s a huge question as we enter the meat of the day.”
Welker obviously agreed, stating Trump told her “fairness was going to be a theme” in his inaugural address “and then, in the very next breath, talked about the fact that at the same time we have to acknowledge everything that has been done that he finds to be unfair, so I will be listening very closely to see how tempered his language is.”
“An unflattering article, in his world, can appear unfair,” Holt replied.
Guthrie had the last word on this, comparing Trump to a toddler: “Any mom of a toddler will tell you fairness is in the eye of the beholder, so we will see what those themes mean to him when he takes to the podium.”
To see the relevant NBC transcript from January 20, click here.
