RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Wednesday that he would "double down" on his remarks equating Democrats' suggestion the GOP is waging a "war on women" to a fictional "war on caterpillars."
"I'm not going to walk back, I'm going to double down on it. This war on women is a fiction the Democrats have created, and the real war on women is the war this president has put forward on the American people by not following through on his promises, by having women disproportionately affected by the economy," Priebus said Wednesday on MSNBC.
The Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee
pounced on remarks Priebus made during an interview with Bloomberg TV last week.
“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and mainstream media outlets talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we have problems with caterpillars,” Priebus said then.
Democrats said Priebus was marginalizing the concerns of female voters.
The comment “shows how little regard leading Republicans, including Mitt Romney, have for women’s health,” said Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter in a statement. “Women are already abandoning the Republican Party in droves because of their antiquated positions on women’s health and out-of-touch policies on the middle class. Reince Priebus’ comments today only reinforce why women simply cannot trust Mitt Romney or other leading Republicans to stand up for them.”
On Tuesday, Priebus reiterated that he saw the alleged "war on women" as fiction.
"It's a fiction because, No. 1, there is no war on women. It's a fiction, if you believe all women are pro-abortion, then maybe in your own world there's a war on women. But the fact of the matter is our party believes in life," Priebus said.
The RNC chairman's remarks came as the Obama campaign
was hammering likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney after his campaign aides did not immediately respond to a question about whether their candidate supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Romney's campaign later said the candidate supported fair pay for women, although did not explicitly say if he supported the Ledbetter law, the first bill signed by President Obama upon assuming office.
