He says the GOP has been using talk of scandals to deflect from the improving economy. Pol to C-SPAN caller: This isn't Fox

Democratic Rep. Jim Himes on Wednesday offered some advice to a particularly angry conservative caller: Try a little less Fox News.

On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, a caller from Michigan asked for the Connecticut congressman to try to defend a laundry list of grievances he had with President Barack Obama, including the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and the IRS scandal.


Himes smiled during much of the statement, during which the caller rattled off a number of complaints, including the claim that the White House and not Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was responsible for the October 2013 government shutdown. He also referenced older issues like his comments about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the Justice Department’s Fast and Furious program.

“Any other president would have been laughed out of office by now if he’d have been a Republican,” the caller concluded. “This guy gets away with murder!”

“That was quite a list,” Himes said with a laugh.

The congressman initially appeared willing to address all the issues, but then decided against it, saying that it would take hours to address the numerous complaints leveled at the administration.

“I will try to attend to — actually, I’m not going to,” he said. “Look, with all due respect, Bob, maybe a little more C-SPAN and a little less Fox News. That was the grab bag of everything that Fox News and my friends on the Republican Caucus of the House in particular have tried to hang on the president.”

Himes then picked one of the issues — the attacks in Benghazi — and defended the White House against what he called conspiracy theories from conservatives.

“There’s been absolutely zero evidence that the president had any hand in any one of these so-called scandals that the Republicans have desperately been trying to promote,” he continued, saying that the GOP was trying to deflect from the improving economy under the president.

While Himes conceded that Obama has made “mistakes,” he called the notion that the White House had its hand in several scandals “a figment of Fox News’ imagination.”

Himes is in his third term representing Connecticut’s 4th District.

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Jim Himes