Sky News presenter Kay Burley gave the Tory chairman the "empty chair" treatment after claiming he had missed a planned appearance on her breakfast show.
Sitting next to a vacant seat which Ms Burley claimed was "supposed to be filled" by the politician, she said: "Where is he? He's probably 15 feet away from where I'm standing just at the moment.
"I've been in to see him during the break, he said he wasn't due to come and talk to us today although they had said that they would talk to us."
It was the latest in a string of sour moments as Boris Johnson finally kicked off the Conservative Party's election campaign this morning.
The Tory leader ludicrously compared Jeremy Corbyn's leadership to the forced removals and deaths of millions of Soviet peasants under dictator Joseph Stalin.
He tried to distract from a string of scandals in his own party including a failed bid to use the civil service and
Ms Burley listed a number of topics she had hoped to discuss with Mr Cleverly.
"I know that Number 10 Downing Street watch our show," Ms Burley said.
"I know that the spin doctors at Number 10 Downing Street had absolutely reassured me via text that when politicians were doing the rounds in the morning, they would be doing this programme - and yet, we have an empty chair."
Mr Cleverly responded on Twitter by saying he was doing a TalkRadio interview during the segment.
"I'm good at multitasking but cannot be in two studios at the same time," he added.
The Tories' chairman was however monstered on ITV's Good Morning Britain for releasing a doctored video - of someone being 'monstered' on ITV's Good Morning Britain.
James Cleverly was savaged by host Piers Morgan for cynically editing footage of Labour on the previous day's edition of the breakfast TV show.
In a car crash interview, Mr Cleverly spent more than 10 minutes trying to pretend a "fake news lie" of Keir Starmer talking about Brexit was not doctored, when it clearly was to anyone who has eyes.
In the end he tried to shut down host Piers Morgan and leave for a different interview - as he said exasperated: "For goodness sake Piers, let me finish!"
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