Pelosi says she ‘couldn’t care less’ about Benghazi criticism

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said in an interview broadcast Sunday that criticism by conservative lawmakers against herself and the Obama administration only demonstrates that they are suffering from a “poverty of ideas.”

Mrs. Pelosi said on MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki” that Republicans have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in launching personal attacks against her.

“It means nothing to me,” she said. “I consider the source and I consider them to be stuck in a poverty of ideas. They have none, and that’s where they had to go.”

“I think people are tired of that, they want to know ’what are your ideas about job creation?’ They have none,” she said, as reported by The Hill. “What are your ideas about taking us forward on protecting the environment? … Investing in the future? Passing an immigration bill … They have no plans. They don’t govern. They have no initiatives for the future, so they make personal attacks. “

“We’re about what we have to offer to the American people. And nothing demonstrates the distinction more, and that’s what they want to try to divert attention from, than the two budgets that are coming forth.

“These two budgets are very different from each other and they don’t want the public to see that contrast. So what do they talk about? Benghazi, Pelosi — it’s all diversionary. It’s all totally unimportant and I couldn’t care less personally about them.

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“Every time they attack me, I raise more money … I’m in the arena, I’m here to fight,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

The comments comes after the lawmaker last week dismissed newly unveiled communications suggesting the White House helped shape the public message that blamed a video for the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

“What I will say is, again, diversion, subterfuge: Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. Why aren’t we talking about something else?” Mrs. Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing. “Whatever was in that — what I know of what I’ve read in the press about those emails was very consistent with what was put out there before. I don’t think there’s anything new there.”