John Kennedy Just Told Kristen Welker Something That Made Chuck Todd Irrelevant

September 14, 2026 Cat2, The Media
New Africa via shutterstock

Chuck Todd spent nine years anchoring the longest-running show in television history.

Now Welker is sitting in the chair Todd couldn't hold, and Kennedy just handed her the ultimate validation.

And Senator John Kennedy just told Kristen Welker something that made Chuck Todd irrelevant.

Kennedy Drops the Compliment Nobody at NBC Asked For

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) wrapped up his Meet the Press appearance Sunday the way he ends most things – with something nobody saw coming.

As host Kristen Welker tried to close out the interview, Kennedy leaned in.

"I like you better than Chuck Todd, Kristen!" he said.

Welker laughed, thanked him, and immediately threw a life preserver to her predecessor.

"We love Chuck, too," she said.

Kennedy wasn't finished.

"You've got better hair, for one thing," he added.

Welker said it again – "We love Chuck, too" – and the discomfort on her face did the rest of the talking.

Don't let the aw-shucks delivery fool you.

Kennedy graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt and holds a law degree from Oxford with First-Class Honors.

When he sounds like your grandfather dropping a zinger at the dinner table, he means every word of it.

The Chuck Todd Era Nobody Misses

Todd left Meet the Press in September 2023 after the show's ratings fell to their worst levels in years.

By the time he announced his exit, Meet the Press was averaging 2.5 million viewers – dead last among the major Sunday shows, trailing ABC's This Week and CBS' Face the Nation.

Todd once told a podcast he found it "disconcerting" to be judged on ratings rather than content.

America had a different opinion.

NBC moved his daily show off the main network and onto its streaming platform before he left the company altogether in 2025.

He now hosts a Sunday night interview show and a podcast – which is where you go after Meet the Press when the audience has already voted.

Kennedy's verdict Sunday was the kind of thing NBC's PR department doesn't have a response for – because you can't argue with it, and you can't laugh it off without confirming it.

Kennedy Being Kennedy

This is what Kennedy does, and he's been doing it for years.

He's the senator who dubbed Democratic socialists "Lulu Lenins."

He compared socialism's record of failure to the length of "King Kong's genitalia."

He declared former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was "dead as fried chicken" after a call with President Trump.

The man is a weapon – and the left never sees it coming because he's grinning the whole time.

Earlier in Sunday's interview, Welker pressed Kennedy on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – specifically whether he still had confidence in him, given that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) had publicly called for Hegseth's ouster.

Kennedy didn't fold, and he didn't flatter.

"It's not my place to have confidence in him," he said – then acknowledged Hegseth was "consolidating power" and "seems to be firing some pretty good people," while still saying he would "probably vote for him again" unless evidence showed the firings were unwarranted.

“Whether they deserve it or not, I don’t know,” the lawmaker said. “I voted for him. I’d probably vote for him again until evidence is shown to me that he shouldn’t have fired these guys. But I’m not worried about the personalities.”

That's a man threading a needle on national television while Welker is trying to hand him a gotcha – then closing the interview with a line that owned the rest of the weekend.

That's not an accident.

That's strategy disguised as folksy – and the Left still hasn't figured out the difference.

Sources:

  • Kathryn Wilkens, "'I Like You Better Than Chuck Todd!' GOP Senator Needles Meet the Press Host in Awkward Moment," Yahoo News/Mediaite, September 6, 2026.
  • Fox News Staff, "NBC's Chuck Todd Set to Depart Meet the Press With Show Trailing ABC, CBS in Ratings," Fox News, 2023.
  • Fox News Staff, "Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy Makes Headlines with Comedic One-Liners," Fox News, 2018.
  • TVLine Staff, "Chuck Todd, Former Meet the Press Moderator, Exits NBC After 18 Years," TVLine, 2025.