Hillary Clinton, self proclaimed Champion of Women’s Rights, seemed more interested in attacking her Republican rival Marco Rubio than defending Kelly in a Q&A session on Monday.  In total, she devoted about one and a half sentences to Kelly, spending the rest of her diatribe on the GOP’s “war on women”:

It was offensive. I said it was outrageous; I stand by that. I think more people should say the same; they should be going after him. The Republican Party is going to have to deal with him.  But I just want to remind us that what they say about women, not one woman who is perfectly capable and incredibly impressive, able to take care of herself, but all these women that I have fought for, worked for, stood up for, advocated for, and want to be a president for, who may not have the opportunity to defend themselves — who may lose the right to exercise a personal choice if certain Republicans were to be successful — I don’t want that forgotten. So yes, I know it makes great TV, I think [Trump] went way overboard — offensive, outrageous, pick your adjective.

But what Marco Rubio said has as much of an impact in terms of where the Republican Party is today as anybody else on that stage, and it is deeply troubling. And it should be to the press, not just to those of us who have been doing this work for so long.

Rubio didn’t take the attack lying down.  His campaign hit back with a statement on Clinton’s own brand of abortion radicalism, including her opposition to parental notification laws and late-term abortions:

Hillary Clinton supports abortion even at the stage when an unborn child can feel pain; she has defended partial birth abortions as a ‘fundamental right;’ she opposes requiring parents to be notified that their minor daughter is having an abortion; she supports funding Planned Parenthood even after they have been exposed for their role in selling the organs of unborn children; and she supports using taxpayer money to pay for abortions overseas. Hillary Clinton holds radical views on abortion that we look forward to exposing in the months to come.

The fight between Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton is the latest in a series of public arguments Rubio has been in since last week’s Republican debate, where he strongly defended the right to life and the dignity of the human person, drawing attention from national media.

Nick Arnold is a researcher for American Principles in Action.