Jim Rosica
Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Thursday said frontrunner Donald Trump “only feel(s) big when he’s trying to make other people look small.”
Fiorina, the 61-year-old former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.
Fiorina also commented on Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino County, California: “The first thing I did was say a prayer, say a prayer for those who had been murdered, say a prayer for their families …”
Host Joe Scarborough asked Fiorina about Trump, the real estate tycoon-turned-reality TV star, mentioning that Trump “says very outrageous things.”
Recently, Trump alleged that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks he saw people cheering in New Jersey, “where you have a large Arab population.”
He later was castigated for mocking the appearance of a New York Times reporter with a physical disability after that reporter pointed out that his cheering claims had been widely disproved.
“The media falls for it every time (and) shows it over and over and over again,” Fiorina said. “It’s good for his ratings. He’s an entertainer (but) it’s not what a leader does.
“Here’s his pattern: He says something outrageous, the media follows it, then generally he says somehow we misunderstood him, we misunderstood him making fun of the New York Times reporter, we misunderstood him insulting conservative women who disagree or challenge with him.
“Challenge him,” Fiorina went on. “That’s a pattern of an entertainer. It’s not the pattern of a leader and the pattern that I see is a man who seems to only feel big when he’s trying to make other people look small. And I think it makes Donald Trump look the smallest of all.”
She also called Wednesday’s Southern California shootings “an unspeakable tragedy.”
A heavily armed county worker and his wife killed 14 people and wounded 17 others, targeting his co-workers from the Department of Public Health who were holding a celebration. The carnage happened at the Inland Regional Center, which helps people with disabilities find work, get treatment, housing and transportation.
“The first thing I did was say a prayer, say a prayer for those who had been murdered, say a prayer for their families, say a prayer for those who are trying to recover and say a prayer especially as well for our first responders,” Fiorina said.
But she added that renewing calls for gun control wasn’t the answer to prevent future tragedies.
“I think one of the things we should be doing, and we’re clearly not doing, is prosecuting those people who shouldn’t have guns,” Fiorina said. “I think it’s ideology, not common sense, that causes the left wing, every time in a knee-jerk reaction, to say the answer here is more laws when we’re not enforcing the laws we have. Let’s start by enforcing the laws we have.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
