WASHINGTON -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is sticking to the party line these days, defending all the GOP presidential candidates and urging her fellow Republicans to get behind whichever man eventually becomes the nominee.
On ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked Bachmann, who was also a GOP presidential candidate until she dropped out in January, what she thought of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's comments on the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager in Florida.
On Friday, President Barack Obama underscored the fact that the tragedy resonated personally for him, saying, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." Gingrich called those comments "disgraceful," adding, "It's not a question of who that young man looked like." Earlier on ABC's "This Week," Obama Adviser David Plouffe called Gingrich's remarks "reprehensible," saying they showed he was a man who was "clearly in the last throes of his political career."
"Well, I think what Newt Gingrich said is that race shouldn't be a factor," Bachmann said when asked about Gingrich's comments. "All human life is valuable. And it's interesting the second part of David Plouffe's answer, he said the same thing. All human life is valuable. That should be the bottom line."
"I'm a mother, a mother of five biological children, but also a mother of 23 great foster children," she added. "And when you're a mother, of course, when something tragic like this happens, you want to know what the truth is, what's the result. That's why an investigation is so important. We have to get to the truth about what really happened, not imagine what happened, but actually get to the truth."
Bachmann also refused to join Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum in criticizing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign for an aide's comment that the candidate's policy platform was like an "Etch a Sketch" that would be shaken up and reset for the general election.
"I'm going to unite behind the candidate, as our party will, no matter who that candidate will be," Bachmann said when Stephanopoulos asked whether she was concerned by the remarks. "These kind of things are the minors that become majors, these statements, but the real major is going to be this issue of Obamacare."
When Stephanopoulos pressed her again about whether she was worried the comments were troublesome, Bachmann replied, "No, I'm not. Our candidate will be strong. We will be united as a party."
Bachmann has not endorsed a GOP candidate in the primary, as other former candidates have done after dropping out, saying she will wait and back whichever person becomes the nominee.
"Whoever the people choose, I will back that candidate, because I want mine not to be a divisive voice," she said on Sunday. "I want to help unify the party and bring together the Tea Party element, the evangelical, and the establishment, and then reach out to independents and disaffected Democrats. We have a wonderful positive message, and we need to continue to advance that message until November."