NBC News reporter Vaughn Hillyard said former President Trump's campaign stopped him from covering a New Hampshire event on Sunday – but the campaign said it doesn't "bar reporters based on their reporting" and simply scrapped a network pool.
Hillyard was serving as a pool reporter representing five television networks, a longstanding practice in which TV news organizations take turns sending a single reporter to cover campaign events when there isn’t space for multiple crews.
It was NBC’s turn to send a pool reporter to a Trump event on Sunday, but Hillyard notified the other networks "the pool would be cut off for the day" if he was the representative.
"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. 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 sent to the pool, which includes ABC, CBS, CNN, and Fox News, along with NBC.
"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," Hillyard wrote.
The Trump campaign said Hillyard was not banned or barred based on his reporting.
"We don’t ban or bar reporters based on their reporting," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital. "Just decided not to do a pool."
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NBC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump campaign sometimes holds events without a network pool.
The New York Times reported that Hillyard was allowed to cover a different Trump campaign event later in the day on Sunday.
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While the campaign said his reporting was not the issue, Hillyard has agitated the former president and his allies in the past.
On Friday, Hillyard briefly sparred with Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., over E. Jean Carroll’s claims Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s. Stefanik told Hillyard she didn’t believe Carroll’s claims – which Trump has long denied. A jury found Trump liable last year for sexually abusing Carroll.
Last year, Trump reportedly demanded the NBC News reporter be removed from his plane after objecting to a question about Manhattan DA Alvin Brag’s criminal probe, according to audio obtained by the Washington Post.
Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum and Yael Halon contributed to this report.
