President Donald Trump’s usually media-ready acolytes have all but disappeared from the airwaves since the president launched a politically fraught war with Iran.
While Trump’s surrogates typically like to fan out across the weekend TV spots, no senior administration officials or cabinet members appeared on the Sunday news lineup, CNN reports.
Major U.S. networks requested interviews with members of the Trump administration after the self-proclaimed “peace president” launched unauthorized strikes against Iran on Saturday, according to CNN.
But not a single senior official has taken the TV spotlight, where they would almost certainly have faced tough questions about the unfolding conflict in the Middle East, which has triggered MAGA backlash and has failed to win approval among Americans, polls show.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Trump team has so far made little effort to clearly lay out for the public why the “America First” president attacked Iran or what he hopes to achieve.
Instead of the Trump officials who launched the strikes without congressional approval, it’s congressional Republicans who have been making the rounds on TV to argue for war with Iran.
MAGA Sen. Rick Scott fawned over Trump’s military operation on The Lead with Jake Tapper on Saturday, but he quickly found himself facing the questions that Trump officials have apparently sought to avoid when Tapper cornered him over how the war could alienate MAGA voters who believed in the president’s pledge to end U.S. entanglements abroad.
“Well, what this president wants to do is he want—he doesn’t want forever wars,” the Florida Republican said, sidestepping Tapper’s question. “He’s against forever wars. If you look at what he’s trying to do, he’s trying to make the world a safer place.”
Trump, too, had largely stayed out of sight since the initial war announcement, reappearing only Sunday afternoon when he announced that three American servicemembers had died in the war in another pre-recorded address posted to social media.
“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is,” said Trump, 79, who had spoken to multiple outlets over the phone since launching his attack, which killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump tried to justify his war with Iran, saying, “We are undertaking this massive operation not merely to ensure security for our own time and place, but for our children and their children.”
He argued that his attacks against Iran “are right, and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats.”
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