White House officials stayed silent on Sunday, as no member of the Trump administration appeared on TV, as fallout continued from the president’s comments on racial violence in Charlottesville.
NBC’s Chuck Todd pulled back the curtain in some of his opening remarks on Meet the Press, explaining why he couldn’t get those who usually defend Trump to come on.
‘To give you a sense of how reluctant Republicans are to talk about President Trump this week, not one member of the current Republican leadership in Congress agreed to come on the broadcast this morning,’ Todd told his viewers. ‘In fact, even the White House was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to provide a guest, right down to the White House press secretary.
President Trump hasn’t answered questions from the press, nor have White House officials been on TV to act as spokespeople, since his devastating Trump Tower press conference on Tuesday in which he blamed counter-protesters for some of the violence in Charlottesville too
NBC’s Chuck Todd pulled back the curtain and talked about how he wasn’t able to book guests from the White House or the top tier of the Republican Party, as President Trump continues to be embattled over his Charlottesville remarks
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz revealed that the network had asked the White House to supply a guest and officials pointed to a top evangelical leader to speak for President Trump instead
Jerry Falwell Jr (left), the president of Liberty University, was the guest the White House had recommended to appear on ABC’s This Week with Martha Raddatz (right) in lieu of an official from the administration
Fox got the person closest to the administration, bringing on Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, David Bossie, to appear as a guest on Fox News Sunday
CNN’s Brian Stelter, the host of Reliable Sources, pointed out Sunday that President Trump hadn’t answered any questions from the press since Tuesday’s disastrous press conference
Over on ABC, the network’s Martha Raddatz, anchoring the Sunday show, This Week, said her producers had asked the White House the same thing.
‘In fact, when we asked the White House for an official who could appear on this program today to speak on behalf of the president, they pointed us to our next guest, evangelical leader and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr,’ she explained, going into a Q&A with the top evangelical leader, instead of a spokesperson or official from the White House.
On Fox News, which usually gets the best pickings from the Trump White House, Bill Hemmer, subbing in for Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, had to settle for a former Trump campaign aide instead.
‘First appearance as a guest, what took you so long?’ Hemmer commented to David Bossie, the president’s former deputy campaign manager.
‘The invitation got lost in the mail,’ Bossie joked, before defending Trump’s decision to let go of Steve Bannon, who had been his chief strategist at the White House until Friday.
On CNN, Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter pointed out just how quiet team Trump has been since the president’s Tuesday afternoon presser, in which he placed some blame on the ‘alt-left’ protesters in Charlottesville, who were going up against neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists.
Continuing his ‘both sides’ argument, Trump said there were some ‘fine people’ in both crowds.
‘Since that impromptu presser, Trump has not answered a single question from the press corps and White House spokepeople have not gone on TV,’ Stelter said. ‘Relative silence, except, of course, the president’s Twitterfeed.’
But even that had gone quiet on Sunday.
The only peeps from the administration came as an announcement from Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for a forthcoming presidential address.
‘President Donald J. Trump will address our Nation’s troops and the American people tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. from Fort Myer in Arlington, VA, to provide an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia,’ the release said.
And from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin telling his Yale classmates, who had wanted him to resign, that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Of course with no administration officials playing ball, that left plenty of room on the Sunday shows for Trump’s critics.
CNN’s Jake Tapper started off his State of the Union program Sunday morning with an interview with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, sure, but not somebody who had ever endorsed Trump.
With no White House officials signing up to be grilled on the Sunday shows, CNN gave Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Trump critic, top billing
On CNN’s State of the Union, Jake Tapper (left) brought on one of President Trump’s biggest critics, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who said he questioned the president’s mental fitness
After calling Trump ‘pathetic’ last week for his Charlottesville response, on Sunday, Kasich sang a nicer tune.
The Ohio governor said he was ‘rooting for him to keep it together’ while also denying he was thinking about challenging Trump in the 2020 Republican presidential primary.
Next up, came Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is handling one of the Russia probes.
Schiff told Tapper that he and others on Capitol Hill were seriously worried about Trump’s mental fitness for his post.
‘There are some serious issues,’ Schiff said, adding that the ‘pressures of the job may only get worse.’
Schiff had been asked by Tapper to respond to Rep. Jackie Speier’s, D-Calif., call for Trump’s cabinet to replace him, using the 25th Amendment.
‘We’re still far from concluding that that’s the case, even though we find, many of us, his conduct anathema,’ Schiff said. ‘I don’t think we’re at a point of thinking about the 25th Amendment.’
CBS managed to nab a Republican senator, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., for Sunday’s Face the Nation.
‘Well, I think what he said on Monday was fantastic. It would have been even better had he said it on Saturday,’ said Scott, the only black GOP senator.
But then he pivoted.
‘What he said on Tuesday was just really challenging,’ Scott said.