Trump Campaign Reportedly ‘Bars’ NBC Reporter After Viral Confrontation With Stefanik
After a viral confrontation with top Donald Trump surrogate Rep. Elise Stefanik on Friday, NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard was told by the campaign he would not be permitted to participate as a member of the press pool for Sunday events, the campaign reporter told Puck News.
The Trump campaign tells Mediaite: “We don’t ban or bar reporters based on their reporting.”
Hillyard on Friday asked Stefanik about the E. Jean Carroll case, and the verbal confrontation over media bias spread across social media over the weekend, getting plenty of airplay on MSNBC along the way.
On Sunday, Puck News founder and senior correspondent Dylan Byers sent a message on X saying that Hillyard had been “barred” as a pool reporter and from traveling with the press to Trump’s events, “in retribution for a recent interview in which Hillyard had pressed Rep. Stefanik to comment on E. Jean Carroll accusations against Trump.”
In a follow-up message, Byers quoted from a Hillyard pool report.
“Your NBC News pooler has been informed that the pool will no longer travel with and take part in the former president’s OTR stops today before his Rochester rally,” said the report shared by Byers. “Your pooler was told that if he was the designated pooler by NBC News that the pool would be cut off for the day. After affirming to the campaign that your pooler would attend the events, NBC News was informed at about 2:20pmET that the pool would not be allowed to travel with Trump today.”
+ from @VaughnHillyard pool report:
“Your NBC News pooler has been informed that the pool will no longer travel with and take part in the former president’s OTR stops today before his Rochester rally.⁰⁰Your pooler was told that if he was the designated pooler by NBC News that…
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) January 21, 2024
The quote did not attribute the situation to retribution for the Friday incident.
Mediaite reached out to NBC News but did not receive a response prior to the time of publication.
