WATCH: Obama blames Rush Limbaugh and Fox News for conservatives not liking him

Former President Barack Obama blamed Fox News and conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh for his loss of "connection" with rural conservative voters at a virtual gala held by PEN America on Tuesday. Obama spoke at the virtual gala while receiving an award from the organization.

"I ended up getting enormous support in these pretty conservative, rural, largely white communities when I was a senator," Obama claimed, "and that success was repeated when I ran for president in the first race in Iowa."

Trying to explain why he lost this support, Obama stated "by my second year in office, I’m not sure if I could make that same connection, because now those same people are filtering me through Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and an entire right-wing or conservative media infrastructure that was characterizing me in a way that suggested I looked down on those folks or had nothing in common with them."

Obama went on to argue that in the past, media outlets were less partisan and even partisan outlets "adhered to journalistic norms" by approaching his candidacy more favourably or neutrally. As a result, Obama suggested that people back then looked at him "with a different set of assumptions than they would today," and that conservative outlets try to make him appear as if he "looks down" upon rural conservatives.

Obama then went on to suggest that Republican voters have a victimhood complex. "What’s always interesting to me is the degree to which you’ve seen created in Republican politics the sense that white males are victims," Obama argued. "They are the ones who are under attack, which obviously doesn’t jive with both history and data and economics."

Obama finished by suggesting that Americans should look less at their phones and have more "face-to-face conversations" in order to reduce partisan division.