“From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.” These words introduced Welker on Sunday as she signed on as the 13th moderator of Meet the Press.

Welker has enjoyed a long career with NBC, interning for the Today show in 1997 while an undergraduate at Harvard and later joining the network as a reporter in 2005. After working for local affiliate stations in her hometown, Philadelphia, and then in Burbank, California, she became a White House reporter in 2011, covering the Obama and Trump administrations. In 2019, Welker co-moderated one of the Democratic presidential debates alongside several other women journalists and moderated the final 2020 presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden. She also became co-host of the weekend Today show in 2020. Now, she takes over Meet the Press, which began in 1947 under the moderation of co-founder Martha Rountree. Welker is the first woman to host the program since Rountree left the show in 1953 and the first non-white host in history.

Kristen Welker

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