Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina held her own on a stage with 10 other GOP presidential candidates.
She started off more cordial than I expected, avoiding directly responding to the suggestion that Donald Trump would be a dangerous president with regards to having “his finger on the nuclear codes,” as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal had suggested. Rather than digging in, Fiorina calmly praised Trump as “a wonderful entertainer” and said she looked forward to each candidate proving themselves “over time and under pressure.”
But as the debate continued, Fiorina stepped up as the firecracker she is known to be.
She stepped up when Dr. Ben Carson was asked about being an outsider running for president. Fiorina added, after Carson finished his response, that voters are looking to outsiders because they’re fed up with the status quo and insiders who haven’t been fighting.
She was one of the few candidates who inserted themselves into discussions in order to get more speaking time. She also managed to get her answers out coherently and concisely, even as host Jake Tapper tried to get her to wrap it up.
And on foreign policy, she proved to be one of the most well-informed candidates on the stage. When responding to a question about dealing with Russia, Fiorina rattled off a list of things she would do if she were president, showing just how much research she’s done on the issue.
“What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states,” Fiorina said. “I’d probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message.”
She added: “By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Suleimani’s name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad.”
By the way, the mention of General Suleimani was a dig at Trump, who didn’t know who the Quds Force general was when asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt.
Fiorina also had a strong response to the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood, tying it to Iran.
“One has something to do with the defense of the security of this nation,” Fiorina said. “The other has something to do with the defense of the character of this nation.”
Fiorina finally made her first clear repudiation of Trump nearly an hour into the debate, when she was asked to respond to recent comments the New York businessman made about her face.
“You know, it’s interesting to me, Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” Fiorina said.
And better than any other candidate on that stage, Fiorina was able to turn the debate away from Republicans and onto Democrats. On immigration, she asked why Democrats didn’t solve the issue when they had majorities in the House and Senate shortly after Obama was inaugurated. And of course, as she has often done in the past, she attacked Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Fiorina was the only candidate who graduated from the undercard debate on August 6, and she proved why she deserved to be there.
