The NBC reporter who asked Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y) about E. Jean Carroll’s ongoing second defamation trial against Donald Trump was banned from Trump campaign events over the weekend.
NBC News correspondent, Vaughn Hillyard was scheduled to cover a Trump event in New Hampshire on Sunday as a pool reporter, but was told by Trump’s team that he was not allowed to participate.
“Your pooler was told that if he was the designated pooler by NBC News that the pool would be cut off for the day,” Hillyard wrote in an email to the rest of the pool. “After affirming to the campaign that your pooler would attend the events, NBC News was informed at about 2:20 p.m. that the pool would not be allowed to travel with Trump today.”
Hillyard’s email did not give a reason why he was barred from covering the event, but the move by the Trump campaign came days after the reporter’s viral confrontation with Stefanik, a top Trump surrogate, about the E. Jean Carroll case.
However, Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said in a statement to the New York Times that the campaign does not “bar reporters based on their reporting.”
This is the second time Trump attacked Hillyard for his reporting. During a meeting aboard his plane with journalist last March Trump grabbed Hillyard’s phone and demanded that he be removed.
