Carly Fiorina: I Can Win and I Can Govern

GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina joined Breitbart News Sunday on SiruiusXM Patriot Channel 125 Sunday evening and said that she is motivated by the positive reactions to her performance during the first GOP presidential primary debate last Thursday and her bump in a recent poll released by NBC Sunday.

“I’m very encouraged. There was a poll this morning on Meet the Press—not that that’s a scientific poll by any means —but the question was who won the 9 PM debate? And, I was number one,” Fiorina told Breitbart’s Executive Chairman Steven K. Bannon.

Fiorina commented on the growing frustration with politicians in Washington D.C. that she hears from voters:

I think honestly people are tired of how politics sounds, and they’re tired of how politics are conducted. I think people are sort of sick of the sanitized sound bites, sick of the bumper sticker rhetoric, but most importantly they’re stick of stuff not really getting done. It’s not changing. A lot of people worked really hard to elect a historic majority in the house and a Republican majority in the Senate and yet people feel like it’s not really changing. If you look at the cost of government, the bloat of government, the ineptitude of government, it’s actually been getting worse and worse and worse for 50 years. I mean yes, it’s gotten much worse under Obama—but it got worse before Obama as well.

I think whatever your issue, whatever your cause, whatever festering problem you hope would be resolved, a lot of people think the political class has failed them. I agree; that’s why I’m running for president. I think we need to have an honest conversation in this country about what needs to get done, and then citizens, and the leader of this country need to together get it done. And part of that means actually challenging the status quo in Washington D.C. and using those conservative principles and values we know work better to lift everyone up regardless of who they are or what they’re circumstances.

Fiorina shared her plan on how to make politicians work for the people and do what they promised when they were elected into office, holding them accountable.

“One of the things we know works is politicians respond to pressure. When they get enough pressure, they move,” she explained.

“When the scandal of the Veterans Administration hit… people dying waiting for appointments, and the pressure was so intense in Congress, the Republicans and Democrats—almost without a peep—got together and passed through the House and the Senate a bill that said the VA could fire the top 400 senior executives and President Obama signed it—it was done,” Fiorina stated, providing an example. “Now a year later, we learned that over 250,000 veterans have died waiting for an appointment and only one person has been fired, so the political class sort of forgets about solving the problem once the pressure is relieved.”

The former CEO of Hewlett Packard said in order to put pressure on the politicians in Congress, she would use technology:

I will use technology to focus pressure on Congress. I will go to the oval office and every week I will ask Americans to take out their smart phones and I will ask them questions. So here’s a question, do you believe we ought to know where your money is being spent, press one for yes two for no—that technology exists. Do you believe its important that we should actually be able to fire government employees who are inept or corrupt, press one for yes two for no? Do you believe we actually ought to secure the border finally after 30 years, press one for yes press two for no—the point is people would vote. The technology exists and that would exert huge pressure on the political system.

Fiorina said with the right leader and engaged citizenship the country can change and bring back conservative principles.

Fiorina said the top three priorities, if she were president that would be done in the first 90 days, are the economy, challenging the status quo, and standing with allies while confronting adversaries like Iran.

“We have to get the economy going and to do that we need to understand where economic growth comes from, and where it comes from—where jobs are created are small businesses, family owned business, community based businesses,” Fiorina stated.

She started as a secretary in a nine-person real estate firm, saying that’s where most Americans begin a career.

“Small businesses create two-thirds of the jobs. They employ half the people in this country and we are crushing them. In fact, we are now destroying more of them than we are creating for the first time in U.S. history,” she explained. “They are being crushed by the weight of government.”

“We have to tackle the 73,000 page tax code—the regulatory ticket, etc.,” she added.

She next said her second priority is to “challenge the status quo,” which means “actually go to zero based budgeting.”

Fiorina explained that under her administration, every agency would have to justify every dollar spent every year. “We need revenue reducing tax reform.”

“We have to have goals in government and people have to be held accountable for those goals,” she said.

Fiorina said that tens of thousands of baby boomers would be retiring over the next ten years who work in the federal government. “I won’t replace a single one.”

“It’s a window of time to actually reduce the size of federal government,” she explained.

On the foreign policy front—which was her third priority listed—she said she wants to make sure America’s allies know that “America is back in the leadership business.”

“That is why I said I would call Bibi Netanyahu on day one, and I would also call the Supreme Leader of Iran on day one.”

She explained she would tell Netanyahu that America will stand with Israel, and she would tell Iran to open nuclear facilities to anytime anywhere inspections or else “the United States of America is going to make it as difficult as possible for you to move money around the global financial system.”

“Those two phone calls will send a message we will stand with our allies and confront our adversaries,” she explained.

On her recent notoriety and spike in the post-debate NBC poll, Fiorina said, “I think people are beginning to believe and understand what I have been saying for some time. I can win this job. I can win this job. I can beat our opponent on the other side and I can also do this job because I understand how the economy works, I understand how the world works and who is in it, I understand how bureaucracies work, I understand how technology works, and I understand what leadership is and all of those things are required to do the job.”

“I think people understand I am a fighter and I will throw the punches,” she concluded.