Virginia ? President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, blamed “them Jews” in an interview this week for keeping him from speaking to the president, but later apologized.

Wright, former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, said he hasn’t spoken to Obama since he became president.

“Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office,” Wright told the Daily Press of Newport News following a Tuesday night sermon at the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers’ Conference.

“They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. … I said from the beginning: He’s a politician; I’m a pastor. He’s got to do what politicians do.”

Wright issued a statement that he was “disturbed and deeply saddened” his comments were stirring discussion again.

“I mis-spoke and I sincerely meant no harm or ill-will to the American Jewish community or the Obama administration,” he said.