The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest newspaper, reported early Friday evening that it has been barred from attending a Donald Trump campaign event in Iowa after the paper’s editorial board called on him to drop out of the race.
A Register article said Friday that the Trump campaign had informed the paper that its reporters were not welcome at The Make America Great Again Rally and Family Picnic on Saturday in Oskaloosa. The campaign denied them press credentials, reporters said.
“We are disappointed that Mr. Trump’s campaign has taken the unusual step of excluding Register reporters from covering his campaign event in Iowa on Saturday because he was displeased with our editorial,” Register editor Amalie Nash said in a statement to her paper. “We hope Mr. Trump’s campaign will revisit its decision instead of making punitive decisions because we wrote something critical of him.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told the paper that the decision to ban the Register was a direct consequence of the paper’s editorial on Tuesday, which was entitled “Trump should pull the plug on his bloviating side show” and called him a “feckless blowhard.”
Reporters who work for a paper’s news operation generally have no connection to the paper’s editorial writers. Yet Trump has alleged that both parts of the Register reflect a liberal bias that runs deep at the outlet that dedicates throngs of reporters every four years to extensively cover the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
“As one of the most liberal newspapers in the United States, the poll results were just too much for them to bear,” Trump said of his recent success in surveys after the editorial came out.
A Trump spokeswoman told CNN Friday evening that the campaign had nothing to add beyond the Register report.
Trump wasn’t done bashing the Register on Saturday morning, taunting the “ultra liberal” paper for “begging” his campaign for the credentials.
“The ultra liberal and seriously failing Des Moines Register is BEGGING my team for press credentials to my event in Iowa today-but they lie!”