Fiorina spars with ‘The View’ hosts
Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina faced the hosts of “The View” on Friday, sparring with the panel of female ABC hosts over comments about her looks.
Fiorina returned to the show for a second time, days after telling the hosts to “man up” and confront her directly on issues after two of the panelists mocked her appearance.
{mosads}”I saw that you were a little upset with us about a comic comment that was made,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg told Fiorina, who appeared on the show from Concord, N.H.
“How will you get a thicker skin to accept some of the humorous things that will be said about you?” Goldberg asked.
Fiorina invoked the comments from two other co-hosts, Michelle Collins and Joy Behar, who said she looked “demented” in the last debate and could be a Halloween mask.
“Hey, if you meant your comment about my face being ‘demented’ and a Halloween mask as humorous, so be it,” Fiorina responded Friday.
“I guess you misinterpreted Donald Trump’s comments about my face and thought those weren’t humorous,” Fiorina said. “You sort of took him to task.”
Behar interjected that she defended Fiorina against Trump’s earlier “nasty” remark about her looks.
“But we are comedians here,” Behar continued. “I make fun of Hillary’s pantsuits, and Hillary’s husband’s sex life, John Boehner’s tan, Ben Carson.
“I don’t understand why any politician is exempt from my comedic jokes,” Behar added.
“You know what, Joy, you can say whatever you want. You always have, you always will,” Fiorina responded, adding she has “skin plenty thick enough” for barbs from anyone.
Fiorina is working to gain traction for her 2016 White House campaign, after seeing her bump in the polls, following two strong debate performances, diminish.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO on Friday addressed Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and the prospect of one of them becoming the first female president.
“I think it’s awesome that we have two women running for president. But instead of talking about our gender, we ought to be talking about the issues that face this nation,” Fiorina said.
“So what I’ll asked Hillary Clinton to talk about is not her gender, but her track record,” Fiorina said during “The View” interview.
During Fiorina’s appearance, Collins acknowledged that her original “demented” comment “was a poor choice of words,” then asked Fiorina if someone was advising her to smile more in general.
Fiorina said she wasn’t being advised to act differently, adding, “I love to smile and laugh. But there’s a time to smile and a time to be serious.”
Asked whether she was turning “lemons into lemonade” with feuds with Trump and the ABC hosts, Fiorina quipped, “Oh so you’re telling me that you guys are lemons?”
Fiorina will be among eight candidates on the stage for the next prime-time debate Tuesday in Milwaukee, Wis.
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