ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos defended himself against charges that he had “invented” the “War on Women” strategy for the Obama campaign in 2012 by injecting the issue into a debate in New Hampshire during the primaries. Appearing on the Laura Ingraham Show, The host of This Week claimed it was candidate Rick Santorum who first raised the issue:
“[Sen. Paul] laid out all of these charges, which are completely false. And the idea that this question came out of thin air is just wrong. It’s just factually incorrect. The reason it came up was because just the week before, Rick Santorum actually said in an interview with Jake Tapper […] that he did believe that states had a right to ban [contraception].”
Stephanopoulos came under fire recently when Sen. Rand Paul accused him of interfering with the Republican nominating process by asking Mitt Romney whether he believed states had the right to ban contraception. Paul told Geraldo Rivera on his nationally syndicated radio show:
You can look back to the last primary season and you wonder whether there was collusion between some reporters. You know, Stephanopoulos asked an obscure question about Griswold and birth control when no Republicans were bringing up anything about trying to put limits on birth control.
Listen to the interview below: