White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer battled with Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday in a contentious three-minute segment over President Barack Obama's whereabouts on the night of last September's terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Wallace pushed for details on what Obama was doing the night of the attack and how he tried to manage the situation. Pfeiffer said that Obama was kept up to date by his national security staff, and charged Republicans with a "series of conspiracy theories" on the topic.
"The question here is not what happened that night," Pfeiffer said, suggesting that numerous investigations and hearings before Congress have resolved that issue. "The question is, what are we going to do to move forward and make sure this doesn't happen again."
"But, with due respect, you didn't answer my question," Wallace shot back. "What did the president do that night?"
Wallace eventually asked if Obama ever appeared in the Situation Room, to which Pfeiffer replied that he didn't remember what room Obama was in that night. He also said it was a "largely irrelevant fact."
"The suggestion of your question, that somehow the president allowed this to happen — the assertion from Republicans that somehow the president allowed this to happen and didn't take action is offensive," Pfeiffer said.
"I'm simply asking a question," Wallace responded. "Where was he? What did he do? How did he respond? Who told him you can't deploy forces" to the outpost?
Pfeiffer repeated that Obama was "kept up to date" about the attacks by his national security team.
Pfeiffer was in the midst of appearing on five Sunday talk shows in an attempt to manage fallout from three issues that plagued the White House last week — Benghazi, the Department of Justice's obtaining of Associated Press phone records, and the IRS scandal.
Here's video of his Fox News appearance: