It was March and former president Donald Trump was aboard his plane with a gaggle of reporters following a campaign rally in Waco, Texas. He started off in good spirits. But then a line of questioning from NBC News reporter Vaughn Hillyard, who suggested that Trump had in recent days seemed “frustrated” by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s investigation, began irritating the former president. “Don’t ask me any more questions,” Trump said. About 10 minutes later, as Hillyard continued to ask about the investigation, Trump snapped, grabbing the reporter’s two phones and chucking them to the side, according to a source familiar with the matter. “Get him out of here,” Trump told his aides, according to a recording obtained by Vanity Fair.

The incident occurred a few days before Trump would be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels. Some of Trump’s comments on the plane have been previously reported, such as when he responded to reporters’ questions about Bragg’s probe by attacking it as a “fake case” that “they’ve already dropped.” The Guardian noted how Trump lashed out at Hillyard when the NBC News reporter asked whether he was frustrated by the investigation. Trump denied the notion, insisting, “We did nothing wrong,” and saying, “This is fake news, and NBC is one of the worst. Don’t ask me any more questions.” Hillyard himself said Trump avoided specifics and called the press “fake news.” But the full scope of Trump’s tirade, including his throwing the reporter’s phones, has not been previously reported. Hillyard declined to comment. 

Axios reported that Trump’s 2024 team is running a more professional operation than that of his previous runs, with seasoned political operatives intending on running a “disciplined campaign.” Yet the incident demonstrates Trump's hostile relationship with the press remains unchanged. Trump was notorious for lashing out at reporters while in the White House. On the campaign trail, he regularly turned the ire of the crowd toward the press, famously coining “fake news” as a rallying cry. 

Hillyard’s questions revolved around Trump’s posts on Truth Social at the time; the former president had warned that there could be “potential death and destruction” if he was indicted. When Hillyard again tried to clarify Trump’s “version of events” around the DA’s investigation, the ex-president said, “I don’t want to talk to you.” Hillyard tried to ask another question. “Do you hear me? You’re not a nice guy,” Trump said, turning to take a question from another reporter. When Hillyard tried a third time to get a response, Trump lost it. “Alright, let’s go, get him out of here,” Trump said. “Outta here. Outta here,” Trump said, as Hillyard kept trying: “The special counsel, sir.” A deeper voice, apparently belonging to a Trump campaign aide, can be heard saying, “Vaughn, we’re done.” 

Trump then picked up one of the phones recording the gaggle and asked, “Whose is this?” Hillyard replied that it was his. Trump picked up another phone and asked the same question. “That one’s mine too,” Hillyard said. The former president tossed both phones out of his sight, onto the seat next to him; the thud of one of the phones hitting a surface can be heard in the recording. Someone then asked to talk about congressional support, but an aide said that the gaggle was over. Other members of the gaggle included Axios’s Sophia Cai, the Daily Mail’s Rob Crilly, RSBN’s Brian Glenn, and Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci. (At one point in the recording, Trump praised Vucci as “handsome,” telling the plane, “look at the arms on him.”) The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell had been expected to travel with the president for the Waco trip, but was bumped off the trip a day before due to a story he’d written about Truth Social being under a money-laundering investigation. 

The Trump campaign appears to have reduced mainstream press access as a result of what happened on the plane back from Waco. The only reporters on Trump’s plane for last week’s trip to New Hampshire were from friendly conservative outlets: Henry Rodgers of The Daily Caller and Daniel Baldwin of OANN. Baldwin, in his write-up of the trip, wrote of the “warm” and “welcoming” former president, “It’s clear Trump values the opinions of everyone he surrounds himself with, whether he agrees or disagrees. He even turned to me and said, ‘You really know your sports.’” In a surprising turn, Trump is slated to participate in a town hall on CNN next week. 

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not respond to a question about Trump tossing the phone, but did speak to the campaign’s press availability.

“We extended invites to four other mainstream reporters/outlets and they all said they could not due to either [White House Correspondents’ Dinner] events that week or because their editors refused,” Cheung said in an email regarding the New Hampshire trip without specifying which outlets received those invites. “But we’ve had a ton of media requests to ride on Trump Force One to the upcoming Iowa rally and we will do our due diligence on who to bring.”