Michele Bachmann Defends HPV Vaccine Comments, Gay Marriage Stance On 'Tonight Show' With Jay Leno

Michele Bachmann appeared as a guest on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno Friday, and the talk show host used the opportunity to press the Republican presidential candidate about her controversial remarks about the HPV vaccine and her views on homosexuality.

At the GOP debate last Monday, sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party Express, Bachmann criticized Texas Gov. Rick Perry for signing an executive order requiring middle-school girls in his state to get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus.

"Is that bad? It's a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer," Leno asked Bachmann Friday night.

"Well I think so," Bachmann replied. "The concern is that there are potentially side effects that can come with something like that. But it gives a false sense of assurance to a young woman when she has that, that if she's sexually active that she doesn't have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases."

"I'm not sure it's a sense of assurance. It can prevent cervical cancer, correct?" Leno interjected.

"It's something that could potentially have dangerous side effects," Bachmann repeated.

Leno also pressed Bachmann about the story she has told about meeting an unidentified woman following the debate who said her daughter suffered "mental retardation" as a result of the HPV vaccine.

"Do you regret not getting this woman's name and address?" Leno asked Bachmann.

"I don't know who this person was," Bachmann replied, refusing to budge from the talking points she has repeated this week. "I wasn't speaking as a doctor, I wasn't speaking as a scientist, I was just relating what this woman said."

WATCH:

Leno also pressed Bachmann about her views on homosexuality and gay marriage.

"That whole 'pray the gay away' thing, I don't get it," said Leno, referring to the Christian counseling clinic she owns with her husband.

Bachmann tried to deflect Leno's question with a joke, pointing to her hair and saying, “When I heard that I really thought it was like kind of a mid-life crisis line, like, 'Pray away the gray.'"

The joke fell flat.

"It sounds like, if two gay people want to get married, that's their business, that doesn't concern us,” Leno continued. "Why is that even an issue?"

"I know gay families that are married, they have children. And they're wonderful people. It doesn't seem like they shouldn't be allowed to be happy. But I'm not going to change your mind on that one.”

When Leno asked who Bachmann would like to have as her running mate, she tried to lighten the tone. “You’re taken. You don’t want a cut in pay,” she teased Leno.

“Well, we’d probably have an argument over the gay thing,” he replied.

Leno did get in one good one-liner, though, while discussing the Tea Party's uncompromising position on raising the nation's debt ceiling.

“If you become president -- and you seem pretty strident in your views," Leno said.

“Convicted. I’m convicted,” Bachmann interjected.

“Convicted?” Leno replied. “No, you don’t get convicted until after you’re in office. That’s later. You have to get elected first."

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Comments

[patrons99]

02:49 PM on 10/14/2011

Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov. Rick Perry have been “officially” inducted into the Hall of Shame. They are both unfit for elected office. The electorates voices need to be heard. It’s an abuse of human rights, and crimes against humanity, to use our kids as Canary’s in pharma’s coal mine.

http://www.canaryparty.org/

Over the last 75 years, politicians and regulatory authorities (FDA), in all of their bought and paid for wisdom ($$$), have mandated that humans be serially inoculated with human, non-human, and genetically-engineered DNA, known neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, phase-transfer catalysts, ionophores, abortifacients, and "adventitious presence" of various insundry recombinants and contaminants from adventurism in genetic engineering, while pretending that these toxic cocktails are SAFE. They have made Faustian bargains. Smerck's Gardasil inoculation is only one of the more recent example.

"SANE Vax Inc. Discovers Potential Bio-hazard Contaminant in Merck's GardasilTM HPV4 Vaccine" by Leslie Carol Botha on September 5, 2011.

"Gardasil victim found to have HPV DNA in her blood 2 Years Post-Vaccination - 13 different vaccine vials - 13 different lots of Gardasil from around the world tested - Results - 100% contamination with HPV Recombinant DNA"

http://sanevax.org/sane-vax-inc-discovers-potential-bio-hazard-contaminant-in-merck_E2_80_99s-gardasil_E2_84_A2-hpv-4-vaccine/

"The mother of a sexually naive adolescent girl who developed acute onset Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis within 24 hours of her last injection of the GardasilTM series contacted SANE Vax Inc. looking for more information."

[celebadvo2day]

01:02 PM on 09/21/2011

I think on the vaccine issue, it's best just to discuss how intrusive it is. Arguments for it that it's a good thing are hard to beat. So, coming back with it might not be a good thing, can cause retardation...not effective. Talking about it's an invasion of privacy, or it's another situation in which the government has overstepped it's bounds, now that would be a more effective argument in my book.

[Liz OsborneLeavell]

04:36 PM on 09/20/2011

How does anyone ever vote for someone who can't even fact-check? Just throwing out "I've heards" over a drink with the girls is one thing, but to made a stewpid comment like the ones she threw out during the GOP blows my mind!! I have so many points to make about what she's said in the past, like the John Wayne reference for instance, but she DAILY astounds me.. it would take a novel...

[Harvette Ellington]

09:43 AM on 09/20/2011

Sounds like a biological warfare. It has been proven that people carry some sort of HPV virus, and that women and men can heal themselves. Vivisection anyone?

[joefoss]

09:36 AM on 09/20/2011

Like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart, Jay Leno has joined the honored ranks of
"comedians" who do a better job than most "journalists" of holding slippery politicians to account.
(Unlike "hard-news" guy George Stephanopoulos, who famously let Rudy Giuliani, in an interview on GMA, get away with the claim that "There were no terrorist attacks on America when George [W.] Bush was president.")
=I have to admit I was revolted by Leno's invitation to Dick Cheney to appear on "The Tonight
Show" last week to push Cheney's book of lies. But then, a few nights later, Leno hosted Bill Maher and let him riff uncensored on the Republicans.
=And, now, this gentle but persistent questioning of Michele Bachmann--a woman who is running for President of the United States, but who has been allowed to retreat to her "talking points" to avoid answering important questions, over and over again, on established "news" programs, puts the professional pundits to shame.
=Way to go, Jay!

[VinZenTexaN]

08:33 AM on 09/20/2011

Lie lie lie lie This woman like all republicans lie lie

[Doeidgrl]

03:51 AM on 09/20/2011

It's scary this woman has even the slightest chance at being our next president.

[MikeLawson]

09:15 PM on 09/19/2011

She is an awful person.

[Tom Berndt]

05:58 PM on 09/27/2011

yes, she may very well be awe full.

[ezaxs99]

06:55 PM on 09/19/2011

Why is it an Issue? Why must we now REDEFINE MARRIAGE? Civil Unions are great..no objections and the state recognizes this. Invent another word for "Marriage" for Gay and Lesbians, invent it, not corrupt nor attempt to Redefine an established custom. So many people are being snowed with the use of these words..Civil Unions ARE legal and legal "couple" rights have been available for years.

[MikeLawson]

09:17 PM on 09/19/2011

What are you so afraid of? I don't get what the fuss is about either, just as Jay said. It doesn't effect me, and I could care less. So why are you so hung up on gay people getting to use your words?

[eve mahar]

04:29 AM on 09/22/2011

god you people will never get it. I'm so sick of repeating the facts. First- it is NOT a corruption of marriage. Love is love. it is the same. Families are families. It's the SAME.

Why should my kids parents be "civil unioned" as opposed to just married like anyone else? Separate but equal is NOT equal. We don't need a new magic gay word for it. it's the same damn thing.

Second, civil unions are not and never have been equal, in terms of legal rights, as marriage. My gf lives in England. I cannot bring her here to live with me. The only way we can EVER be together here in the U.S. is for our relationship to be federally, nationally, recognized as a marriage.

It will happen.
I will never settle for anything less.

[CBsez]

06:12 PM on 09/19/2011

Convicted? Oh, if only she was.

[illini74]

05:58 PM on 09/19/2011

Let Leno run the next debate

[John E Priegnitz]

05:29 PM on 09/19/2011

I'm surprised at Jay Leno and I'm curious how the Bachmann camp is going to deflect this as a form of "Gotcha" Journalism. Candidates like her is like nailing Jello to the wall when it comes to getting a straight answer out of them. We need to keep the pressure on them for everyone's sake on issues like these.

[katch]

05:08 PM on 09/19/2011

Nothing different, Same-O, Same-O, Nothing new even Leno interview was more of the same, but don't forget he's a comedian and not going to make waves!

[Harry TenHerons]

05:07 PM on 09/19/2011

A mini-skirt on a Presidential candidate? Really?

[eve mahar]

04:30 AM on 09/22/2011

anything to distract from the vomit spewing forth from her mouth.

[andthatsnotall]

04:24 PM on 09/19/2011

In honor of "Talk like a pirate day" I'll make my comment this way:

Aaarrrggghhhh! I don't tink Leno knows how to ask a hard ballin question, now be he? Dis lady is slippery like a goose, not answerin his questions forthright. Why, I tink she needs to be open an honest with her answers an if she ain't then I sez, Have her walk the plank! Aaarrgghhhhh!!!!!!