Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has captivated — and disconcerted — much of the world, but the journalists tasked with translating Trump for a global audience are facing an unexpected barrier: They can’t get into his rallies.

The nationalist tone of Trump’s campaign is being echoed in its press credentialing practices, with foreign media giants regularly denied press access and even blocked from general admission. Meanwhile, local outlets, down to the high school level, find there is plenty of room.


The freeze-out is a source of aggravation for foreign reporters, but not all of them are blocked. And the decisions about who is in and who is out do not always match Trump’s rhetoric.

Indeed, with journalists from Russia, France and Germany all reporting freeze-outs at the same time that those from Qatari-owned Al Jazeera find their way in, it appears Trump’s press office is waging a foreign policy all its own.

The campaign of the presumptive Republican nominee has attracted unprecedented levels of media interest, and the press pens at Trump's rallies are often packed to the gills. A spokeswoman for the campaign did not respond to requests for comment, but in emails denying credential requests from foreign outlets, the press office explained, “The Donald J. Trump Campaign fully recognizes and respects international media but due to various venue sizes, media space, and safety we must limit the number of credentialed media and give priority to our national and local outlets.”

Affected journalists, though, expressed skepticism that the explanation could account for a near-blanket ban that has extended to rallies at large arenas. “Hey, come on, if it happens with every single rally since Iowa. You cannot deal with your space issues, really?” said one journalist from a Russian outlet who was not authorized to speak on the record.

It is not unheard of for a presidential campaign to deny access to a foreign outlet. Last June, Hillary Clinton’s campaign refused a designated pool reporter from the Daily Mail access to events in New Hampshire, citing the outlet's foreign ownership. The Daily Mail often covers her critically. John Hendren, a correspondent for the Qatari network Al Jazeera English, said Ted Cruz’s campaign refused his crew access to an event in Iowa and staffers then asked him to stop interviewing attendees outside the event, which he declined to do.

But Republican operatives said the practice of regularly denying credentials to foreign media outlets is not a normal one. "The rationale of ‘I'm not going to grant an interview’ with a candidate is because their audience, they are not American voters,” said Gail Gitcho, Mitt Romney’s communications director in 2012. “That's usually the rationale for not doing the interview, but it’s not a rationale for not letting someone into an event."

Gitcho, who also served as a senior adviser and spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign, said that while interview requests from foreign media outlets were given low priority by the campaigns she has served on, they very rarely blocked foreign reporters from attending events.

Many foreign journalists regularly attended Trump’s rallies without incident until the run-up to the Iowa caucuses in late January, when the campaign began denying them credentials — at first without explanation.

Even then, the ban was not consistent. Foreign reporters who had been denied access to other Iowa events were permitted to attend Trump’s Jan. 28 fundraiser for veterans groups at Drake University in Des Moines, counterprogramming to the Fox News debate that night, which Trump boycotted.

"I got in with all the other foreign media outlets,” said the Russian journalist, who had been denied access to other events that week. “It was packed. It was just huge. So basically I realized later he did it to show Fox and whoever that he’s so busy and important.”

But after that, the press office reverted to its “America First” approach.

In early February, Gustau Alegret, political correspondent for Colombian television broadcaster NTN24, participated in a State Department-sponsored foreign media tour of campaigning in New Hampshire. But at a Trump campaign event the day before the New Hampshire primary, Alegret said he was told there was a problem with the press list and was not given credentials. Alegret instead entered with a ticket as a member of the general public and was approached by a campaign staffer who told him he had to leave. When Alegret protested that he was not working and was attending as a citizen, the staffer called over a police officer, who asked him to leave.

"This is first time in eight years I’ve found someone who is discriminating between national and international media," Alegret said.

A reporter for a major Chinese outlet reported a similar experience at an April rally in New York, where she was denied entrance as a member of the media and instead attended as a member of the general public. But when the reporter, who asked that her name and the exact location of the rally be withheld, began filming the removal of a protester, she was escorted out of the venue. “They said I could not shoot videos,” she said.

Some correspondents with multiple affiliations have learned to list only the American outlets for which they work when applying for credentials.

And the practice has prompted a letter of concern from Laura Haim, the U.S. bureau chief for the French television network Canal Plus, to the White House Correspondents’ Association.

“According to my study, 98 percent of reporters working for a foreign news organization that is not aired in the United States (like BBC America) or that is not an international news agency (AFP) could not get press credentials to go inside the meetings,” Haim wrote in the letter, sent in March via email and obtained by POLITICO. Haim reported that a campaign staffer approached a group of foreign reporters who attended a February rally in Charleston, South Carolina, to ensure that they were not reporters shooting video on cellphones. The email concluded, “Yes, for the moment, we foreign correspondents are covering the Trump campaign with our cell phones.”

“The WHCA urges all presidential candidates to give the same access to reporters that we press for at the White House. That includes access for foreign reporters,” WHCA president Carol Lee wrote in an email to POLITICO.

The ban does not extend to everyone. Many international or foreign-owned outlets with significant American audiences, such as Reuters and the left-leaning Guardian newspaper, regularly receive credentials. David Martosko, the U.S. political editor for the British-owned Daily Mail, which has millions of American readers, enjoys regular access to Trump himself, including a recent sit-down in Indiana.

But the press office also makes allowances for foreign outlets that lack large American audiences, and the decisions are not always consistent with the campaign’s rhetoric. In December, the businessman called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. But Al Jazeera English, a network that is not available in the United States and is owned in part by the royal family of Qatar, a nation governed by Sharia law, has not had problems attending Trump’s events, according to a spokeswoman for the network. According to Hendren, Al Jazeera English received credentials as recently as Trump’s Iowa caucus-night event in Des Moines on Feb. 1, after other foreign reporters began receiving denials.

Michael Shure, who was a political correspondent for the network's U.S. channel Al Jazeera America (which shut down last month) said he rarely had a problem with credentials and that it's possible the campaign thought Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera America were the same thing.

When Trump delivered a foreign policy address last month in a crowded ballroom at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., at least some journalists from Russia, France, Colombia and Germany were denied credential requests, and a small group of spurned foreign journalists lingered along a wall outside the ballroom’s entrance.

In his speech, Trump called for closer cooperation with Russia and for renegotiating U.S.-Asian alliances. Trump has repeatedly said Japan should pay more for the U.S. military presence there and suggested that the United States should withdraw protection if it does not, a position that has drawn condemnation from the Japanese government.

A Japanese television crew from the channel Asahi, also denied from entering the room, was left talking to former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore who, in a post-speech gaggle, explained to them: “I have enormous respect for the people of Japan. They are absolutely an essential bulwark for American policy in the Pacific.”

As Trump enters the general election and his allies seek to assuage the world’s concerns about his ideas, the campaign may face growing pressure to accommodate foreign journalists. For now, the practice continues.

At a May 2 rally in South Bend, Indiana, among those denied credentials was a four-person crew for the German network ARD, the world’s largest public broadcaster.

Meanwhile, inside the press pen, Cameron Carpenter, a junior at Penn High School in Mishawaka, Indiana, and executive producer at Penn News Network, said his four-person crew had no problem getting credentialed. But the access had its limits, and Carpenter said he had been unable to score an interview with Trump. “We were trying to, but I don’t think it worked out.”

CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to reflect that the Japanese television crew from Asahi was only permitted to enter the room where Trump gave his foreign policy speech after Trump had left.