Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who is seen as one of the most likely GOP presidential candidates, made Indiana the first state to cut off funds to Planned Parenthood.

Only months ago, Daniels called on Republicans to lay aside social issues in order to focus on budget and spending issues. But he has attacked the nation’s leading provider of women’s reproductive health care to show conservatives driven by issues like abortion and gay marriage that he is on their side, The Nation’s Melissa Harris-Perry says on The Rachel Maddow Show. All that even though the state’s funding never went to abortions to begin with. “The thing is, its not symbolic if you are the woman that can’t get the pap smear,” she says.

—Sara Jerving