Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina brushed off concerns Sunday about pandering by tweeting she was rooting for the University of Iowa over her own alma mater in the Rose Bowl.
“Oh for heaven’s sake Dana, can’t a girl ever have a little bit of fun?” Fiorina said to CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “That was a tongue-in-cheek tweet.”
Fiorina was asked the question after she accused Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, of pandering to voters in different parts of the country. She called Cruz’s actions an example of why Americans are tired of the political class.
The former Hewlett-Packard executive, who ranks eighth in the latest Washington Examiner presidential power rankings, then pivoted from defending her tweet into a hit on President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“You would think based on this reaction that I had said something really controversial, like ISIS is a J.V. team and Benghazi was the result of a video,” she said.
Fiorina also talked about her statements claiming former President Bill Clinton is fair game in the 2016 election.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump has dragged the former president’s sex life into the campaign in recent weeks and Fiorina said she believes the actions of any former president are fair game in the election.
But she disagreed with Trump’s tactic of focusing on Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades as a viable attack on his wife.
“Going after Bill Clinton is not going to defeat Hillary Clinton,” she said. “Donald Trump is going to run his race and I’m going to run mine and we’ll see who wins.”
Fiorina also spoke against Obama’s plans to expand background checks for gun purchases through executive order, called for a clearer strategy for dealing with the Islamic State and said the United States needs to back Saudi Arabia in the current tensions with Shia Muslim countries like Iran.
