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 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 publicizing an unsubstantiated dossier claiming the Russians had salacious information about him. At the press conference, the president-elect refused to take a question from CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, who shouted out to him.

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.