White House officials absent from Sunday shows

White House officials were notably absent from the morning news show lineups on Sunday, as President Trump capped off a turbulent week in his presidency. 

“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,” Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said. 

“In fact, even the White House was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to provide a guest, right down to the White House press secretary.”

{mosads}ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who filled in for George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” said that the White House had similarly declined to provide an official to appear on the show. 

Instead, she said, the White House referred the show to Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University and an ardent Trump ally outside the White House.

“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,” Raddatz said, introducing Falwell. 

It was not clear if White House officials turned down offers to appear on the shows. 

Trump has faced a week of near-constant tumult that began last weekend when he came under fire for his equivocal comments on the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. 

After delivering a statement condemning white supremacist and Nazi groups by name on Monday, the president reignited public furor on Tuesday when he blamed both white nationalists and counterprotesters for the mayhem in the usually quiet college town, and said that there were good people on both sides.

In the days that followed, Trump faced backlash from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, as well as several business leaders, who resigned from key economic advisory councils, prompting the president to announce that he had disbanded the panels.

The White House has also remained relatively quiet on the departure on Friday of Trump’s chief strategist Stephen Bannon, who has since returned to his previous role as executive chair of Breitbart News. 

Trump had signaled earlier in the week that Bannon’s future in the White House was uncertain, telling reporters in a news conference Tuesday: “We’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon.”