President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign announced on Monday that it will no longer issue press credentials to any reporter employed by Bloomberg News, the agency owned by Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
This move by Trump’s re-election campaign was prompted by the recent statement from the news agency following Bloomberg’s announcement to run for president that it would no longer critically cover any of the Democratic presidential candidates, which includes Bloomberg and his opponents but also said that it would continue to cover Trump.
Although Trump’s re-election campaign actually made the announcement and not the White House, it is not clear yet whether Trump will allow Bloomberg reporters to receive press passes during his presidency. Having press credentials is a perk that allows members of the media to easily access rallies and other campaign events they are sent to cover, whereas members of the public are welcome, but must first obtain tickets from the campaign and endure long waits in line to gain admittance.
“Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events,” Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale said. “We will determine whether to engage with individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case basis.”
Bloomberg is a billionaire media mogul and former New York City mayor who owns the news organization bearing his name. On November 24, he announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president, and began his plans to spend over $100 million of his own money on digital ads to attack Trump in an effort to sway voters.
When Trump’s campaign made the announcement of its intention to deny Bloomberg reporters press credentials due to their intent to commit biased reporting, Bloomberg News quoted editor-in-chief John Micklethwait as saying, “The accusation of bias couldn’t be further from the truth. We have covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign.”
After Bloomberg announced his intention to run for president, the news agency then released a statement about their reporting saying that it would “continue our tradition of not investigating Mike (and his family and foundation) and will extend the same policy to his rivals in the Democratic primaries.”
However, Micklethwait also said, the business-focused news organization would continue “to investigate the Trump administration, the government of the day.”
This announcement made by the news organization is the sole reason Trump’s re-election campaign issued the ban on the new credentials, as they view the statement to be politically biased against the president and see no reason at all to extend the courtesy of issuing press credentials for them.
