Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) shot back at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, claiming that Pelosi's move to connect a GOP student loan plan to the so-called Republican war on women was "pathetic."
"She wants to continue this fiction that every Democrat messenger is trying to put forward, which is there's a war on women,” Bachmann told Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto. “There is no war on women. There's never been a war on women."
On Thursday, Pelosi lambasted the recently announced Republican bill, which would keep student loan rates at their current levels by pulling money from a public health fund included in President Barack Obama's health care law. Democrats had originally proposed covering the estimated $6 billion cost by closing a tax loophole that lets certain wealthy people avoid paying Medicare taxes, but Republicans countered by targeting what House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called an Obamacare "slush fund."
"He's calling it a slush fund," Pelosi said of Boehner's proposal during a press conference. "Well, it may be a slush fund to him, but it's survival to women. It's survival to women. That just goes to show you what a luxury he thinks it is to have good health. We do not agree."
Bachmann went on to attack Pelosi's strategy in her interview, accidentally referring to her as the "Speaker of the House" and accusing Democrats of perpetuating a "political fiction" in order to cater to women voters.
The House passed the GOP's student loan proposal on Friday by a vote of 215 to 195. The White House has threatened to veto the bill.