Jeb Bush Says He Misspoke on Women’s Health-Care Funding

Jeb Bush says he goofed Tuesday when he suggested major cuts in women’s health programs, another gaffe that Democrats quickly pounced on.

After all, why support just Hillary Clinton or just Jeb Bush when you can hedge your bets and donate to both?

Bush soon retracted his statement, saying he “misspoke” when speaking about women’s health funding and was referring only to the “hard-to-fathom $500 million in federal funding” for Planned Parenthood. “They provide critical services to all, but particularly low-income women who don’t have the access they need”, Bush said in the follow-up statement walking back his comment.

Moore’s interview with Bush, along with a previously recorded interview with fellow GOP candidate Marco Rubio, was in front of a crowd of 13,000 evangelicals attending the Send North America conference co-sponsored by the North American and global Mission Boards of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Bush posted details of his plan to medium.com, a social media website.

When conservatives talk about “women’s health” funding, they aren’t talking about funding for abortion.

However, Democrats, including Clinton, had already seized on the comments, calling it evidence Republicans don’t care about women’s issues. Bush said he’ll defund Planned Parenthood; Trump said he’d allow a government shutdown if it isn’t defunded.

Sanders blasted a fundraising email telling supporters that “we need to be spending a lot more money on women’s healthcare”.

His response was: “The next president should veto Planned Parenthood“, which drew applause. He thinks the next president should do the same at the federal level. The organization is also barred from using federal funds for abortions. Millions of women visit the organization for family planning, HIV testing and prevention, and cancer screenings.

And third, trying to climb out of the ditch, the Republican made a claim that was demonstrably untrue – he said Planned Parenthood was caught “selling fetal organs”, which isn’t even close to being accurate – which he then followed with another claim that was demonstrably untrue.

The potential for the stray comment to hurt Bush in the long term is obvious: The remarks-which were captured on video and preserved on YouTube-were pretty much tailor-made for a general-election attack ad. They aren’t as meme-worthy as Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women”, but liberals won’t have to get almost as creative to give them some staying power.

Moore cited a failed effort to “defund Planned Parenthood” in the Senate on Monday and said another vote is coming soon on a continuing budget resolution to fund the government.

The controversial videos were filmed in secret by anti-abortion activists and are heavily edited.

“Republicans want to stop Planned Parenthood from killing babies in order to sell their body parts, and maybe Mrs. Clinton should directly answer that”, he said.