September 15, 2016 | No Comments
LACONIA, N.H. — Donald Trump on Thursday mocked his traveling press corps for being late to his rally, even though his campaign is responsible for arranging the pool’s travel.
“I have really good news for you,” the Republican nominee told supporters here, according to a livestream of the rally this and other pool reporters watched on a bus from the airport to the event location.
“I just heard the press is stuck on their airplane. They can’t get here. I love it. So they’re trying to get here now. They’re going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said could you wait? I said absolutely not. Let’s get going, New Hampshire.”
While television cameras continued to roll live on the rally, still photographers already at the venue opted not to shoot any images of the event out of solidarity with their pool colleagues.
Trump, who blacklisted individual reporters and several news organizations (including POLITICO) until last Thursday, has made a habit of using the media as a punching bag while still largely enjoying saturation campaign coverage from television networks.
Trump has also criticized Hillary Clinton for avoiding the press. After going more than 260 days without holding a news conference, the Democratic nominee has repeatedly taken questions from the press in the past week, including in Greensboro, North Carolina, Thursday afternoon.
Clinton also began traveling on the same plane as her press pool two weeks ago, while Trump still travels without his.
Trump took off from LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, shortly after taping an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” late Thursday afternoon.
His press plane did not leave a different airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, until after 7:30 p.m. because some reporters who pooled Trump’s appearance on “Tonight Show” were caught in traffic leaving Manhattan.
Based on the final three minutes of Trump’s remarks, all the press pool was able to hear in person, it sounded like the GOP nominee stuck to the same scripted stump speech he’s been delivering over the past week.