One of President Trump’s former presidential primary opponents won’t be voting for him in November.
During a podcast interview with the Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina, who competed against Trump for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, sounded off on the president for his lack of “leadership” during the coronavirus pandemic, asserting she’s not confident she can vote for the incumbent in the general election.
“I cannot vote for Donald Trump in 2020,” Fiorina told Sykes, later saying she is considering casting her ballot for former Vice President Joe Biden. “Depending on how he conducts himself, for the first time in my life, it’s possible I will not vote, but I will not vote for President Trump.”
Fiorina earlier noted how she voted for Trump in 2016 but has since been disappointed by his leadership, while also chiding him for asserting he’s faced a more hostile press than President Abraham Lincoln during a recent Fox News town hall. But the former Republican presidential candidate, who was also Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s vice-presidential pick in 2016, said she can’t commit to supporting Trump because of her own principles.
“If you sell your soul, no one will ever pay you back. A job won’t, press won’t, and fame won’t,” Fiorina said. “When one abandons one’s principles and says things that one doesn’t believe, one has sold one’s soul. And I’m not willing to sell my soul for anyone.”
“Did you think at all of running in the primary against Donald Trump?” Sykes asked, to which Fiorina replied in the negative.
Fiorina also noted in the podcast how she supported Trump’s impeachment over his communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but stopped short of saying he should have been removed from office. She explained, “The act of holding him accountable by impeaching him to demonstrate that this is not acceptable behavior by a president of the United States. That, I believed, was vital.”
The House voted in favor of two articles of impeachment against Trump late last year, with no Republicans voting in support of the charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. Trump was later acquitted of all charges in his U.S. Senate trial.
