'You’re out': RNC threatens to remove reporters who 'ask about the 2020 election'

19 June 2024

The Republican National Convention (RNC) is set to kick off in less than a month in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the party is already cautioning reporters hoping to interview former President Donald Trump against mention certain sensitive topics to him.

During a recent segment on WCPT 820 AM, St. Louis, Missouri-based KSDK political editor Mark Maxwell told host Edwin Eisenrath about some of the stringent requirements journalists are expected to adhere to when covering the RNC. Maxwell noted that the RNC is "preparing for the possibility" that Trump will be under home confinement during the convention, as it will be taking place just four days after his sentencing hearing in Manhattan. He added that some topics are considered off-limits and could get a reporter ejected from the convention entirely.

"I have been hearing from some of my friends in local media that plan to be there from across the country that the Trump campaign is already trying to vet their questions," he said. "They're saying, 'look, you play nice, we might give you some airtime, you'll feel real important, you can talk to the former president, get him on the airwaves. But if you ask about the 2020 election, you're out."

"Well, I hope no one in the press corps falls for that," Eisenrath said.

"The people that I'm hearing from are like, 'that's bogus, we're not gonna play ball like that. That's not how this works, you don't get to screen our questions,'" Maxwell responded. "For as much as they bluster about 2020 being 'stolen' and all this, they're very sensitive to it. They don't like the topic."

Maxwell went on to say that Ken Block, who the 2020 Trump campaign hired to find proof of election fraud, wasn't required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He not only failed to find any proof of the kind of alleged "widespread voter fraud" that would have changed the outcome of the election, but he wrote about his findings in a book he called "Disproven."

So far, Trump has continued to publicly insist that he was the true winner of the 2020 election, even though his own attorney general, William Barr, confirmed there was no significant voter fraud. But recently, Trump admitted to author Ramin Setoodeh of Variety.com that he "lost the election."

"In one of our conversations we were watching clips of The Apprentice, and I showed him a clip of Geraldo Rivera, who was a contestant. And he got worked up over their falling out and the feud that they had, and he said 'when I lost the election,'" Setoodeh told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday.

"hat was a really revealing moment to me and proved something I'd been thinking about, is Donald Trump is playing a character. He's a reality show character that projects this image that people want to see," he continued. "And I think truthfully, if we were able to get inside of his head and find the truth, he would admit that he lost the election, because he said it to me."

Listen to the audio of Eisenrath and Maxwell's segment below, or by clicking this link.

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