Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s team kicked reporters out of the restaurant where he was eating after a 2005 video emerged of his running mate, Donald Trump, making lewd and explicit remarks about women.
Pence’s traveling press pool — the rotating group of reporters and photographers who are tasked with following the Republican vice presidential candidate for the larger press corps — were “removed” from Tony Packo’s Cafe in Toledo, Ohio, after the first stories about the video hit the internet.
The Pence campaign had promised the pool that it could cover Pence’s departure from the restaurant, which would include Pence “looking at Trump’s signed hot-dog bun.”
“As far as we know,” Pence himself wasn’t aware of the stories as they broke, reported Vaughn Hillyard, the NBC News reporter on print pool duty.
In the video’s audio, Trump claims he tried to have sex with a married woman and says he can grab women “by the pussy” because he is a celebrity.
Removing the press pool is a break with protocol that’s sure to frustrate news organizations who pay a lot for reporters to follow the candidates each day on the campaign trail. They could potentially miss a newsworthy, even historically significant moment, if denied access to the candidate's movements.
A Pence spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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