Pence Claims ‘It’s Nonsense’ To Say GOP Willing To Shut Down Government Over Planned Parenthood

Appearing on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour on Sunday morning, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) denies that Republicans threatened to shut down the government over funding to Planned Parenthood, even though he did exactly that five days before. Pence said Rep. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) criticism of how Republicans used the budget fight to impose their right-wing policies on the country was “nonsense”:


Let me say, first off, it’s nonsense to say that Republicans were willing to shut down the government over this.

However, on Tuesday, Pence told MSNBC’s Willie Geist that “of course” he was willing to “hold up this entire budget over defunding Planned Parenthood.”

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“I have never advocated reducing funding to Title X,” Pence told Amanpour, even though he has voted to eliminate the entire program, which provides funding to family planning services for five million low-income Americans a year, but excludes abortion.

Pence also repeated the lie that “Planned Parenthood’s clinics focus mainly on abortion,” even though that actually represents only three percent of their activities.

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