Trump Campaign Ejects Bloomberg News Reporter From Event

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn to board Marine One at the White House in Washington on Dec. 18, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign removed a reporter with Bloomberg News from an event in Iowa on Monday.

Jennifer Jacobs, the reporter, was escorted out of a press conference in West Des Moines.

The campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did Bloomberg News. Jacobs didn’t comment on the ejection on her Twitter account.

A Trump campaign official told The Hill that the campaign was following a policy to not let Bloomberg News employees cover campaign events.

“It was cordial, but she wasn’t credentialed per our policy,” the campaign official said.

The situation stemmed from a Bloomberg News announcement last year. The outlet said it would continue not investigating its owner, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Because Bloomberg was running for president, the outlet also wouldn’t investigate any other Democratic presidential candidates.

“We will continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and we will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries. We cannot treat Mike’s democratic competitors differently from him,” Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait wrote in a memo.

“For the moment, our P&I team will continue to investigate the Trump administration, as the government of the day,” Micklethwait said. “If Mike is chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate (and Donald Trump emerges as the Republican one), we will reassess how we do that.”

Former New York City mayor and 2020 presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg during the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington on Jan. 22, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

The unusual decision prompted Trump’s campaign to say it wouldn’t issue press credentials to Bloomberg News until it investigated the Democratic presidential candidates.

“The decision by Bloomberg News to formalize preferential reporting policies is troubling and wrong,” Brad Parscale, Trump’s reelection campaign manager, said in a statement at the time. “As President Trump’s campaign, we are accustomed to unfair reporting practices, but most news organizations don’t announce their biases so publicly.”

“Bloomberg News has declared that they won’t investigate their boss or his Democrat competitors, many of whom are current holders of high office, but will continue critical reporting on President Trump,” Parscale added. “Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events.”

Bloomberg News was hit with a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint over its policy, which also sparked complaints among reporters.

Bloomberg in December 2019 told employees complaining about the policy that “we have, just have, to learn to live with some things.”

“They get a paycheck. With your paycheck comes some restrictions and responsibilities,” he said. “When I started a news business in my company, I hired somebody outside. Their job is to run the news organization. The other job is to set the ethics. I think people have said to me, ‘How can you investigate yourself?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think you can.'”

The 77-year-old billionaire argued that because Bloomberg News carried some stories from other outlets, readers are able “to get news about the candidates.”