Source: NBC / Getty
The final presidential debate (thank God!) will take place on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET and will be ran by a Black woman, NBC News White House correspondent and Weekend Today co-anchor Kristen Welker.
In doing so she will become the second Black woman to moderate a debate since Carole Simpson in 1992.
The debate takes place at Belmont University in Nashville spanning 90 minutes. Topics include “Fighting COVID-19,” “American Families,” “Race in America,” “Climate Change,” “National Security” and “Leadership.”
After the disastrous first debate where Chris Wallace struggled to reign in Trump for repeatedly disregarding the debate rules, we know Welker is more than qualified to take the job. In addition, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced earlier this week that mics will be muted during certain portions of the event to curb previous distractions.
Welker, a 44-year-old Philly native, is the daughter of Harvey and Julie Welker. Her father is Native American and her mother is Black. She has over 20 years of experience in the field of journalism, where she began interning at Today in 1997 while studying history at Harvard University. After serving as a researcher for the show, she began working in the local TV news circuit in Rhode Island, and California before returning to her hometown of Philadelphia.
She returned to NBC News in 2010, and eventually became the official White House correspondent. She regularly appears on NBC Nightly News and MSNBC. Most recently, Kristen moderated the all-female-panelist Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC in November.
Trump can’t stand women, let alone a smart Black woman in powerful positions. He’s issued targeted attacks against a number of Black woman journalists during his time in the White House including White House reporters April Ryan and Yamiche Alcindor.
He’s already began attacking Welker on social media because we know if he don’t do nothing else, he ‘gon tweet. On Saturday Trump responded to a retweet from his son Donald Jr. who shared a New York Post story reporting on Welker’s “Democratic ties.”
“She’s always been terrible & unfair, just like most of the Fake News reporters, but I’ll still play the game. The people know!” he wrote.
He followed that up with attacking her at a MAGA rally in Wisconsin and Arizona, calling her “unfair,” and a “radical Democrat.” Welker is not registered with a political party, which is a standard practice for prominent journalists for objectivity purposes, and has never donated money to a political campaign.
The gag is that he personally congratulated her in January after it was announced she would take the Weekend Today anchor spot alongside Peter Alexander.
Hopefully Welker will swiftly and promptly stop him from his blatant lies on the debate stage.
