Sen. Ben Sasse blasted Nancy Pelosi after White House officials said that the House Speaker attempted to slip in a Hyde amendment loophole into the coronavirus stimulus package.
“While schools are closing and hospitals are gearing up, Speaker Pelosi is waging unnecessary culture wars. Speaker Pelosi should be fighting the coronavirus pandemic, not politicizing emergency funding by fighting against the bipartisan Hyde amendment,” the Nebraska Republican said in a statement to National Review.
“We need to be ramping up our diagnostic testing, not waging culture wars at the behest of Planned Parenthood. Good grief,” he said.
On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported that White House officials said Pelosi tried to negotiate a provision that would have created a “slush fund” with access for groups previously banned from receiving funds under the Hyde amendment, which bans federal money from being used to fund abortions.
“A new mandatory funding stream that does not have Hyde protections would be unprecedented,” one White House official said.
“Under the guise of protecting people, Speaker Pelosi is working to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent covering abortion, which is not only backwards but goes against historical norms,” he added.
Nancy Pelosi stated that the Democrats agreed to “most” changes that Republicans had asked for in the House bill.
