Soon people will have an opportunity to really meet “Meet the Press.”
Kristen Welker, the current moderator of the long-running NBC Sunday public-affairs program, will host the first live event tied to the show, “Meet the Moment LIVE,” at City Winery in New York City on June 29. At the gathering, a crowd that purchases tickets will see a conversation between Welker and Taraji P. Henson, who will discuss her acting career as well as her work built around advocating for mental health.
“Meet the Press” has since 1947 convened top newsmakers in the nation’s capital to talk about the most pressing issues of the news cycle in front of a TV crowd of news aficionados. Since taking the reins of the program as moderator in 2023, Welker has worked to broaden the conversation. The show’s “Meet the Moment” segments tend to focus on bigger issues that affect the whole nation and rely on interviews with people from outside the Beltway. Among those who have made a “Moment” are Olivia Munn, Michael Phelps and Martin Luther King III, and issues have included everything from grief to infertility to sports.
“We are always going to have the big political conversations and the guests who are at the center of political discussions,” says Welker, during a recent interview. Still, many topics affect the broader audience and aren’t typically addressed during tradition interviews on the show. Concerns over such things as public health “are issues our politicians are working with,” she adds, “They impact our politics. They impact our culture. They impact the world in which we live.”
