Carly Fiorina blasts Clinton on Benghazi, playing the "gender card"
Ahead of Hillary Clinton's closed-door testimony with the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Thursday, Carly Fiorina is stepping up her criticism of the former secretary of state, saying that Clinton needs to be held responsible for the 2012 terrorist attacks.
"What has Mrs. Clinton ever been held accountable for?" Fiorina said at a campaign event in Iowa Saturday morning. "I wish for once Mrs. Clinton would be prepared to stand and be held accountable for the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya."
However, Fiorina said that because the interview sessions are conducted behind closed doors, the public may not get much out of the hearings.
Talking to reporters Friday, Fiorina said that she thought Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, who chairs the Benghazi panel, was doing a good job with the investigation.
The committee recently came under fire for partaking in partisan politics after comments from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that the Benghazi investigation should be credited with Clinton's dipping favorability ratings.
Fiorina has also taken issue with the way Clinton has used her gender in the campaign to cast herself as an outsider. Fiorina argued that gender is the basis of Clinton's entire candidacy.
"Mrs. Clinton is the personification of the professional political class," Fiorina said, disputing a claim Clinton made during Tuesday's Democratic debate that she did not represent politics as usual.
"No, Mrs. Clinton, you are not an outsider because you are a woman," the former tech executive added. "But it gave us a glimpse of things to come because Mrs. Clinton is going to play that gender card all day long. It is the rationale for her candidacy."
Because "she can't really claim she is an outsider," Fiorina continued, "it is going to be about being a woman."
The Republican candidate asserted that Clinton has "been in political intrigue for her entire life."
When asked if Fiorina believed Clinton's only rationale for running for president was her gender, Fiorina said that Clinton wasn't basing her candidacy on much else besides her record as secretary of state and recent changes on policies like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
"[Clinton] lacks a track record of accomplishment," she said. "She is not running on her time as secretary of state -- obviously, the world is kind of messed up right now."
Plus, Fiorina added, "she has taken positions in this election cycle that she has not taken before."
"She is a 'new' progressive. She loved TPP -- described it as the gold standard -- now suddenly she is against it," she said. "Most of the positions that she is running on today are very recently acquired positions ... the one constant in all of this has been that she is going to be the first woman president. So I think she believes that's a very strong rationale for her candidacy, I think that's why she brings it up over and over and over and over."
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO said that gender has nothing to do with her own candidacy and people will support her because she is the most "qualified to win the job and do the job." But even so, Fiorina recognized that running for president as a woman is something she and Clinton share.
"Look, I am proud of being a woman. Being a woman is part of who I am. But people are going to vote for me because I'm a qualified leader," she said.
The Clinton campaign declined to comment on Fiorina's remarks.
Fiorina was also asked for her reaction to Donald Trump's comments to Bloomberg about George W. Bush being responsible for the attacks on 9/11. Fiorina took the opportunity to offer what she thought the Trump candidacy was based on.
"Donald Trump says a lot of frankly irresponsible things, and the rationale for his candidacy seems to be everyone else is stupid or messed up or a loser and he is the only guy who is good," she said.