Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reportedly blocked an NBC News journalist from covering campaign events in New Hampshire on Sunday.
Sunday’s exclusion of the NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard came when he was set to serve as a pool reporter. Instead of having a pack of reporters follow a candidate everywhere, campaigns will often allow television, print and radio news organizations to send a single pool reporter to travel with them – and those reporters in turn then send a readout to other news outlets.
But on Sunday, Hillyard wrote in an email to the pool: “Your pooler was told that if he was the designated pooler by NBC News that the pool would be cut off for the day.”
The email, which was subsequently published by several news organizations, added: “After affirming to the campaign that your pooler would attend the events, NBC News was informed at about 2.20pm that the pool would not be allowed to travel with Trump today.”
Hillyard a day earlier had pressed the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik – said to be a potential Trump running mate – on whether she believed the ex-president had sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll.
NBC News and Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Cheung told the New York Times the campaign does not “bar reporters based on their reporting”, and the campaign’s pool system was an informal one. The Times also said Hillyard was allowed to attend an event later on Sunday in New Hampshire.
Despite the Trump campaign’s denial that Hillyard’s exclusion Sunday was retaliatory, the former president has a long history of trying to retaliate against news organizations for their coverage by trying to block them from continuing to cover him.
In 2016, when he won his lone term in the Oval Office, his campaign refused to credential several news organizations for rallies that had been critical of him.
In 2019, the campaign banned Bloomberg News reporters from covering his rallies after the organization announced it would not investigate Michael Bloomberg, who was running for the Democratic nomination, or his other Democratic rivals.
As president, Trump attempted to revoke the press pass of the CNN host Jim Acosta who became known for asking pointed questions during press briefings.
A jury last year found Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll.
There is now an ongoing trial over how much Trump should have to pay in damages for separate defamatory comments he made in 2019, setting the stage for Hillyard’s questions to Stefanik about the case.
“How do you grapple with standing by his side while a jury is debating how much to award E Jean Carroll for being sexually abused by Donald Trump?” Hillyard asked Stefanik. Stefanik replied that this was an example of a “witch-hunt” and how “the media is so biased”.
“You don’t believe E Jean Carroll?” Hillyard responded. “It’s not me! It’s not the media! It’s a jury that found that he sexually abused.”
The Carroll trial is separate from more than 90 criminal charges pending against Trump in various jurisdictions.
