The president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) said Friday that President Trump’s reelection campaign has taken an “inexperienced volunteer” off the road after the volunteer put his hand over a photographer’s lens to prevent him from photographing a protester.
Evan Vucci, The Associated Press’s chief Washington photographer, posted a photo of the incident to Instagram, alongside a caption that said the photographer was trying to take a photo of a demonstrator during Thursday’s Trump rally in Evansville, Ind.
WHCA President Olivier Knox said in a statement on Friday that he spoke with Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign about the incident, who said it taken the the volunteer off the road.
“The Trump campaign assures me that these were the actions of an inexperienced volunteer, who understands that he acted in error,” Knox wrote to WHCA colleagues. “The campaign has taken him off the road, and promises that this will not happen again.”
Trump has had a fraught relationship with the media since the campaign trail. Throughout his campaign and presidency, Trump has derided the media as “fake news” and even blocked reporters from certain events.
During his rally in Indiana on Thursday, Trump railed against the news media, lambasting NBC and CNN, as well as a New York Times reporter, over coverage of his past crowd sizes, saying the reporter “doesn’t have a clue.”
“These are just dishonest, terrible people,” he said.