David Axelrod: Bob Schieffer Just 'Can't Book The Guests He Wants' (VIDEO)

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Former White House adviser and current NBC analyst David Axelrod said on Tuesday that he thinks Bob Schieffer was simply trying to book more guests on his show when he tore into the Obama administration's media policy on Sunday.

Schieffer complained about the White House's restrictiveness when it came to finding people to talk to on "Face the Nation," saying it was indicative of a wider problem with the administration's approach to media issues:

"It's reached the point that if I want to interview anyone in the administration on camera, from the lowest-level worker to a top White House official, I have to go through the White House press office," he said. "If their chosen spokesman turns out to have no direct connection to the story of the moment, as was the case when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was sent out to explain the Benghazi episode, then that's what we, and you, the taxpayer, get. And it usually isn't much."

Speaking on "Morning Joe" on Tuesday, Axelrod dismissed the complaint.

"I do think there are real issues regarding the relationship with the media on this leak matter," he said. "Certainly, as you guys have been talking about all morning, the notion of naming a journalist as a co-conspirator for receiving information is something I find disturbing. But the notion that the public should be concerned or disturbed, or that the taxpayer's being cheated because Bob can't book the guests he wants, I'm unsympathetic to that."

"Is Bob Schieffer a whiner?" Joe Scarborough asked him.

"Don't put words in my mouth," Axelrod said, adding, "I think he's doing from his perspective what he needs to do, which is book more guests on his show."

(h/t Politico)