MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace and senior White House reporter Vaughn Hillyard discussed Real America’s Voice receiving access to cover President Donald Trump’s arrival in New York City. Wallace laughed after Hillyard repeated Trump’s praise of Breitbart, while Hillyard described RAV as a “MAGA-propagating outlet.” The segment followed a decision by the major television networks to suspend their usual pooled coverage of Trump. Real America’s Voice was separately listed as the secondary out-of-town television crew for the trip.
The scene aired on Monday, September 21st, as Trump traveled to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Trump had barred CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House after accusing the organizations of reporting “fiction and lies.” The three outlets filed a lawsuit against the administration on Monday, alleging that the restrictions violated their First Amendment rights. CNN had been scheduled to provide television pool coverage of Trump’s trip but was removed from the assignment.
The television pool normally allows one rotating network to film presidential events when space prevents every outlet from bringing its own camera. CNN is one of the five primary television pool members, along with ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC, which share their footage with other organizations. After CNN was removed, the primary television networks announced that they would suspend coverage of events designated for the pool. Real America’s Voice wasn’t part of that primary rotation and covered Trump under its separate out-of-town assignment.
Wallace and Hillyard first discussed Trump’s statement that Breitbart was the only outlet that treated him fairly. Wallace broke into laughter and said, “I didn’t even know it still existed.” Hillyard replied, “So, if Breitbart is the bar—I mean, the president said it himself.” He described the camera arrangement for Trump’s arrival in New York.
“The one broadcast camera that is allowed to come in today to film the president upon his arrival to New York City for the first day of the United Nations General Assembly, without the pool, without CNN, with CNN being barred to cover it on behalf of all the networks, the one hand-selected outlet is called Real America’s Voice,” Hillyard said in the clip. He described RAV as “the MAGA-propagating outlet.” Hillyard then identified Steve Bannon, Jack Posobiec, and John Solomon as personalities whose programs appear on the network. His remarks focused on RAV’s political alignment and its selection for the assignment.
Real America’s Voice was outside the five-network primary television pool that suspended its coverage. Its crew continued covering Trump’s trip while the regular pool was not operating. The resulting footage gave RAV its own coverage of the president’s arrival rather than a feed produced through the usual network rotation. The clip shifted from the MS NOW segment to Bannon and Posobiec responding on “War Room.”
Watch the MS NOW segment and the response from “War Room” here:
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Posobiec characterized the networks’ suspension as an attempted boycott of coverage of Trump’s trip. He argued that RAV’s presence prevented the suspension from leaving the president’s arrival without television footage. “RAV has broken the boycott of the mainstream media that they were attempting to put in place on broadcasting of the president’s trip,” Posobiec said.
Bannon responded to Hillyard’s use of the phrase “MAGA-propagating” and told him to describe RAV more directly. “Vaughn Hillyard, we know you well enough. We’ve covered you since you were a cub reporter out in Arizona pestering Kari Lake,” Bannon said. “You can go ahead and say it. It’s MAGA propaganda. You don’t have to say ‘propagating.’ It’s propaganda. MAGA propaganda. Just let it roll out. We know what MSNBC thinks.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.