Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce Fiorina on being left out of prime-time debate: It's a long race

Carly Fiorina may have been kept out of Thursday’s prime-time debate on Fox News, but the GOP candidate claims she’s not worried.

“Well, first of all, these are national polls … national polls measure, among other things, name ID; about 40 percent of Republicans have heard my name, in other words, the vast majority of Republican voters, nevermind Americans, still don’t know who I am, so that’s not unexpected considering I’m not a professional politician,” Fiorina said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”


The polls used to determine the debate roster of the top 10 Republican candidates all have Fiorina below 5 percent. She will be joining six other candidates at the Fox 5 p.m. debate that will air before the prime-time event.

“We’ve got a long way to go here, it’s a long race and I’ll look forward to the happy-hour debate,” Fiorina said.

The former Hewlett-Packard CEO said that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also polled low early on in his 2008 presidential bid, which he ultimately lost.

Fiorina also touched on some policy platforms that she plans to discuss Thursday. She said she would vote to defund Planned Parenthood, calling the tapes an “abomination” and saying that the organization’s defense is “insulting.”

Fiorina said she wouldn’t raise the gas tax to fund infrastructure. “Isn’t it interesting that the federal government always needs more money to do anything important?” Fiorina asked.

The presidential candidate also said the U.S. needs to go to zero-based budgeting.

She said would use technology to put pressure on lawmakers to be transparent about how they are spending money with a weekly smartphone vote. She said she’ll ask Americans to press 1 if they want to know how the government is spending money and 2 if they don’t.

“People will vote, they will press 1 for yes and that puts pressure on the political system. Technology is a great tool that can be used to re-engage citizens in the process of their government,” Fiorina said.

She also used her technology address to take a jab at fellow female presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Hillary Clinton, of course, doesn’t understand technology well enough to know that her server has most assuredly been hacked because Secret Service agents can’t protect it from being hacked,” Fiorna said.