Donald Trump’s podium might’ve been at center stage at Thursday night’s presidential debate–but he was clearly sharing the spotlight with Carly Fiorina.
Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, was nearly kept out of the primetime debate altogether. She only prevailed due to widespread public and media outcry that forced CNN, the debate host, to rework their selection criteria to allow 11 candidates on top stage.
In retrospect, Trump’s probably wishing she had been kept out after all.
In the grueling three hour debate, Fiorina shined from beginning to end, even as her opponents, like Trump, began to fizzle.
Her biggest dig against frontrunner Donald Trump was when she was asked about his attacking her looks during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
“Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she replied, to applause.
But the largest applause line of the night came from Fiorina as well, when she passionately discussed the Planned Parenthood fetuses-for-pay scandal.
“Anyone who has watched this video tape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes,” she said, to thunderous applause. “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.”
It remains to be seen whether Fiorina’s second strong performance will help her poll numbers rise against Donald Trump.
When making the round of interviews the following morning, Fiorina just had this to say about her performance: “I was very satisfied.”
