Trump's campaign team ends the election with revenge on the media

Photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images

With just hours until the polls close, the Trump campaign is punishing reporters for critical stories that either they or their media outlets have written in recent days.

Politico had three reporters and a photographer accredited to the campaign party in Palm Beach, Florida. However, according to a source, Politico learned on Tuesday that they had been banned from the event because of a story Politico Magazine had published a day earlier by a freelancer about a white nationalist who worked on the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania GOP fired the staffer after learning of the views he expressed under an online pseudonym.

According to another source known, Axios reporter Sophia Cai was informed on Saturday that she would not be allowed into the campaign's election night watch party. (Cai had permission to cover campaign events throughout October.) This news came hours after she published an article about Trump's fears in the final stretch.

The campaign also derailed Tara Palmeri's plans. The Puck reporter had planned to broadcast an Amazon special live from the campaign's headquarters in Florida, but campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita had other ideas and wrote about her penchant for writing nonsense in a post last Thursday to report election night. Well, well.” Palmeri had previously been denied entry to Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden, but had “received assurances from the Trump campaign” that she would be “permitted to broadcast from the campaign's election night party.” Oliver reported status to Darcy.

The Trump campaign has taken similar punitive measures against reporters this cycle, most notably by denying them media access to campaign events. The team also earned praise for being a more sophisticated organization at the highest levels than in 2016, when the Trump campaign denied press accreditation for events to entire news organizations. Politico's exclusion from today's event suggests that in the event of a Trump victory, the next four years may not be so different.