Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday said ABC's George Stephanopoulos may have helped the Obama administration manufacture the so-called Republican "war on women" due to his close ties to the White House and the bizarre line of questioning about banning contraception he forced on then-GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during a debate.
Appearing on Geraldo Rivera's radio show, Paul addressed the decision by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus not to hold any debates on CNN or NBC if they refuse to cancel planned docudramas about Hillary Clinton, a likely Democratic candidate.
"Well, you know, you can look back to the last primary season and you wonder whether there was collusion between some reporters. You know, Stephanopoulos asks an obscure question about Griswold and birth control when no Republicans were bringing up anything about trying to put limits on birth control," the Kentucky Senator said.
Listen to the exchange via MRCTV:
Paul said he agrees with the Griswold v. Connecticut decision because he is "in favor of privacy," but added that it was a strange and obscure topic to bring up during a debate.
"[T]he thing is, it was a weird thing to bring up in a debate, and nobody understood why," he said. "But then for two years, the President’s campaign then ran ads saying that the Republicans were against people allowing birth control. So you wonder if there was a concerted action between a former Democrat operative and basically the President’s campaign."
"Well, so you’re, are you alleging that George Stephanopoulos was a Democrat plant during the debate?" Rivera pressed.
Paul replied: "I’m saying that there-- it makes you wonder. And he’s also said publicly that he has frequent correspondence with his friends who are still involved with the White House. So the question is, are you going to get a fair shake, and I think it’s a reasonable question for Republicans to ask, should we be scheduling debates and allowing people who used to and still do have active contact with the active Democrat Party, should we be subjecting ourselves to that, or should we try to have more neutral or objective type of moderators?"
If you don't recall the strange back-and-forth between Stephanopoulos and Romney on banning contraception, MRCTV also has that video (Newsbusters has the transcript here):
It was this exchange that led conservative author Brad Thor to nearly put up a $100,000 bounty for proof that Stephanopoulos helped coordinate the "war on women" narrative.
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/BradThor/status/365702602651996162"]
Thor told TheBlaze the offer was never made public.
(H/T: Newsbusters)
Featured image via AP
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