House Republicans on Wednesday contested Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) anecdote in which a House GOP leader told President Obama that they couldn’t “even stand to look” at him during shutdown negotiations earlier this month.
“The speaker certainly didn’t say that, and does not recall anyone else doing so,” Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), told the National Review on Wednesday.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) spokesperson also said that Cantor does not remember anyone saying that to Obama.
Durbin wrote on Facebook Sunday that one Republican House leader told Obama in a meeting, “I cannot even stand to look at you.”
Asked to respond to Boehner and Cantor by TPM on Wednesday, a spokesman for Durbin declined to comment.