By HADAS GOLD | Politico |
The White House has refused to send its spokespeople or surrogates onto CNN shows, effectively icing out the network from on-air administration voices.
“We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda,” said a White House official, acknowledging that CNN is not such a place, but adding that the ban is not permanent.
A CNN reporter, speaking on background, was more blunt: The White House is trying to punish the network and force down its ratings.
“They’re trying to cull CNN from the herd,” the reporter said.
Administration officials are still answering questions from CNN reporters. But administration officials including White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway haven’t appeared on the network’s programming in recent weeks.
Spicer, speaking at an event at the George Washington University on Monday, denied that CNN was being frozen out, pointing out that he’s answered CNN’s questions in the regular daily briefings.
But, he added “I’m not going to sit around and engage with people who have no desire to actually get something right.”
The last time an administration official was on CNN’s Sunday public affairs show “State of the Union” was Conway on January 8. She also appeared on CNN the following Wednesday with Anderson Cooper, the same day as then President-elect Trump’s press conference where he derided CNN for publishing a report that intelligence officials had briefed both Trump and former President Barack Obama that the Russians may have negative information about Trump. At the press conference, the president-elect refused to take a question from CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, who shouted out to him to answer his question since he was attacking his news organization.
After his inauguration, Trump has continued blasting CNN as “fake news.”
Since then, Conway, Spicer, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and even Vice President Mike Pence have made the rounds on the major Sunday shows but, notably, CNN’s “State of the Union” has been cut out.
“State of the Union” anchor Jake Tapper said on his show and via Twitter that the White House has declined his invitations to appear.
“We invited the Trump White House to offer us a guest to provide clarity and an explanation of what the president just did, especially given so much confusion, even within its own government by those who are supposed to carry out this order,” Tapper said on Sunday as he introduced a segment about the Executive Order banning visitors from some countries and putting a hold on the United States’ refugee policy. “The Trump White House declined our invitation.”
Tapper said something similar the previous Sunday. >>> Read More at Politico