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Network pools refuse to cover Trump hotel tour

In a show of joint defiance, the major television networks collectively voted to pull a camera and erase video of Donald Trump giving a tour of his hotel, a protest of the campaign preventing any editorial presence on the tour.

According to members of the traveling press pool, after it was made clear that only still photographers and video cameras would be allowed on the pool, the Washington bureau chiefs of the various television networks convened an emergency conference call and agreed to pull the network camera and erase the footage of the tour.

"The pool rules state any event that is pooled with cameras, there has to be a pool producer. Due to the fact we were not granted editorial access, as is customary, that decision was made and the footage was erased," a member of the Trump traveling press told POLITICO.

The tour of the hotel was to take place after Trump made remarks finally admitting that President Barack Obama was, in fact, born in the United States. For years, Trump has suggested that Obama was not born in the U.S., and that his birth certificates may have been fraudulent.

But though the event was billed as a news conference to set the record straight on Obama's birthplace, Trump ignored reporters standing on their chairs, shouting questions. He also made only a brief statement of a few sentences on the controversy, spending much of the time being boosted by campaign surrogates and touting his hotel.

And then, when Trump was supposed to take the press on a tour of his new hotel, the editorial producer for the network pool was physically detained.

"As the designated pool producer; attempted to go on pooled tour, as is customary. Was physically restrained from accompanying the camera," tweeted ABC producer Candace Smith.

In a statement, Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who is the current pool chair for the television pool, said without reporters or producers, the pool doesn't traditionally participate in an event.

"The Television pool members chose not to participate in a tour of the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. today because our editorial team member was barred from going on the tour with a videographer," Boughton said. "The TV Pool traditionally doesn’t participate in events that our reporters or producers are not allowed to attend."

We reached out to the Trump campaign for comment and will update here accordingly.

This post has been updated with the statement from the TV pool chair.