Trump sought to remove NBC reporter from plane. Doesn't bode well for CNN "town hall."

And why did we only learn about Trump's angry outburst over a month after it happened?

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When I wrote a piece on Tuesday, the headline of which asked, "Should CNN hold a town hall with Donald Trump?", the initial reporting from the AP noted the event CNN announced with Trump wouldn’t be live and an air date had not been set.

Since then, CNN itself has reported that the event, a "town hall" with New Hampshire Republican voters, will be live and is set for May 10 at 8 p.m. (I updated the end of my piece.)

That makes it even harder to believe that Trump’s lies will somehow not be allowed on the air or will be checked. Particularly since CNN has said that the moderator, Kaitlin Collins, will not be asking questions, which will only come from people in the audience.

And now a story that both the Washington Post and Vanity Fair broke after the news about the CNN "town hall" only shows Trump has no control under questioning and that too many media reporters protect him.

Trump apparently blew up under questioning and tried to throw a reporter off his jet during a news gaggle on March 25th, even tossing the reporter’s phones. And we’re only finding out about it over a month later. Do you think if President Biden did that, reporters would protect him?

From the Washington Post:

Former President Donald Trump got so irritated with an NBC reporter’s questions about a Manhattan criminal investigation that he grabbed the journalist’s phones and demanded that he be removed from an airplane interview…

…The incident unfolded as Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination in 2024, was speaking to a small group of reporters aboard his plane after his March 25 campaign rally in Waco, Tex.

{Vaughn] Hillyard [of NBC] asked Trump about payments from his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump waved the payments off as evidence that Cohen "wanted to ingratiate himself to me, to show me what a hotshot he was."

After a few minutes, Hillyard noted that Trump had "seemed frustrated" by the investigation over the past couple of days, ostensibly referring to his social media posts lashing out at [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg.

"I’m not frustrated by anything. What am I, frustrated? — I just did a speech for two hours," Trump said, cutting Hillyard off. "I’m not frustrated by it. It’s a fake investigation. We did nothing wrong — I told you that. … It’s the exact opposite. This is fake news, and NBC is one of the worst at it. Don’t ask me any more questions."

Yep. "Don’t ask me any questions."

Other reporters asked questions, and Hillyard pressed again, and, once again, Trump got irritated and defensive. But Hillyard tried again, per the Post, and that’s when Trump really exploded and called for throwing him off the plane:

Nearly 20 minutes into the gaggle, Hillyard can be heard trying to ask one more question about the Manhattan criminal investigation.

"I don’t want to talk to you," Trump said. "You’re not a nice guy."

When Hillyard presses on, Trump is heard demanding, "Let’s go, get him out of here. Outta here! Outta here!" and then asking if a phone on the table is Hillyard’s.

"Whose is this?" Trump asked.

"That one’s mine, too," Hillyard said, referring to another phone.

In the audio, a soft thud can be heard as Trump tossed the phones to the side. The journalists were ushered away from Trump, who remained seated at the table, according to a person on the flight who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the exchange.

NBC and Hillyard, who I think is a solid reporter who’s done good work, had no comment for the Post. At the time, Hillyard did report on NBC that Trump answered his questions in a contentious way but didn’t report that Trump called for ousting him from the plane or threw his phones around.

Perhaps Hillyard was worried about losing access and might not have thought it was worth it, whether you agree with that or not. But why didn’t anyone else report on it? Here was a scoop about Trump melting down and lashing out at the press, yet they all protected him — probably because any of them could lose access. Why did it take well over a month for us to find out about this?

The event doesn’t give me any faith that our media, worried about access, will report on Trump the way he needs to be reported on, in the process protecting him.

And the outburst certainly doesn’t bode well for the live "town hall” on CNN. Trump, with this behavior, has telegraphed to networks and reporters that they should pull their punches because he might react in a hostile manner, threatening a TV event as well as their future access.

We’ve seen this many times before. There’s example after example in 2106 and during his presidency, of how much of the media is completely manipulated by Trump.

But this incident on his plane, having happened very recently and during the current campaign, shows us not much has changed, all these years later, as we see Trump and the press gearing up for the 2024 presidential race together.