President Barack Obama was leaving a Senate Republican meeting on the budget earlier this month when he unexpectedly bumped into Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) as they both came off the White House elevators.

It wasn’t a friendly chat…

Lugar now says Obama hasn’t called him on the phone to chat one on one about his thoughts and feelings — even though some Cabinet officials have solicited the 79-year-old Republican’s advice. Lugar says he attends meetings when invited by the White House, but the perception that he has frequent sessions with Obama has been vastly “overestimated,” as is any closeness with the president.

“This isn’t the case, and it never has been,” he said of reports of regular phone calls between him and the president.