Last night it was reported that no reporters will be allowed to participate in the 2020 Republican National Convention. Of course at this point the in-person component of the convention consists of little more than the formal nominating process of Donald Trump as the 2020 Republican nominee. It raises the question of why this is happening.

We all know that Trump hates all legitimate news outlets. But he’s not playing favorites here; he’s kicking everyone out, including the propaganda outlets that praise him. This isn’t about punishing the media; it’s about making sure that what goes on during the nominating process gets as little attention as possible.

This is remarkable when you consider that the process consists of crowning Donald Trump as the party’s nominee for President. It’s a formality, but it’s still an honor. You’d think that a narcissist like Trump would want to make sure this gets covered. And that’s where we get to the bottom of this. The only reason for Trump and his babysitters to keep the media away from the nominating process is if they expect it to be embarrassing for him.

To be clear, there’s basically a 100% chance Donald Trump gets the nomination. He already won nearly all the delegates during the primary season, and the delegates can’t just magically nominate someone else instead. But Trump and/or his handlers must be expecting this process to play out in ugly fashion. Perhaps the fear is that some of the delegates will express their disapproval with Trump during the nomination.

In any case, Team Trump is expecting bad press out of the convention, so it’s decided to simply ban the press. These kinds of leaks are usually trial balloons to see if they can get away with pulling it off. We’ll see how much pushback there is, and if Team Trump and the RNC end up having to cave. But this leak alone shows how worried they are about how ugly things might get with Trump being an increasingly unpopular nominee.