Despite having some of the sharpest primary debate exchanges with President-elect Donald Trump, former GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, speaking before a gathering of state legislators in Washington, D.C., offered indirect praise for her former rival.
The election “represents an incredible opportunity and responsibility,” former GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told a roomful of state legislators meeting in Washington, D.C.
Speaking at the “States and Nation Policy Summit” of the American Legislative Exchange Council, Fiorina listed a number of issues where Americans preferred the vision of President-elect Donald Trump to the agenda of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“Educating our children is more important than deciding who gets to use which bathroom. This is not a sign of disrespect or intolerance to anyone. It is rather a common sense admission that priorities matter.
“We have a health care problem in this country…It is simple common sense to reject Obamacare, a law that punishes most to help far fewer.
“It is simple priority setting to say it doesn’t make a lot of sense to create yet another government agency like the Consumer Financial Protection Board…before figuring out what went wrong with 26 other government agencies that were supposed to be minding the store and somehow failed to see or prevent the financial crisis from happening in the first place.”
“And voters said creating more jobs is a higher priority than standing by a global climate agreement that cannot cool the earth but will destroy most jobs.”
Fiorina did not address any friction she had with Donald Trump during primary debates, but did criticize mainstream feminist groups.
“During my campaign I was attacked by feminist leaders. Feminism has been hijacked by the progressive left. Feminism used to mean women should be able to use their God-given talents to live whatever lives they choose, whether that is home-schooling five children or running for President.”
ALEC is a non-profit association that provides media training, policy education, and resource networking to conservative state legislators and helps them replicate successful legislation from other states that lowers taxes or limits government power.
Before President-elect Donald Trump entered the campaign last year, ALEC was a major target of progressive activists, who campaigned to have corporate donors end their support of the group, or risk consumer boycotts. That campaign of intimidation ultimately failed, and this weeks conference, ALEC’s 30th, was sponsored by a variety of foundations and corporations, including United Parcel Service, publisher McGraw Hill, and Pfizer.
Though founded in the early 1970s, ALEC has for over a decade received substantial funding from Charles and David Koch, who before Trump were also among the major bete noirs of many liberals. The Kochs did not support Trump’s candidacy, with Charles Koch even opining publicly that he might vote for Hillary Clinton.
Fiorina was the headliner of a largely female list of lunch and breakfasts speakers at the meeting of the 1,000 assembled legislators and others, including Lenore Skenazy, the author of Free Range Kids, and Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel, author of a book on censorship, The Intimidation Game.