CNN's Alisyn Camerota Calls Out Carly Fiorina On Pattern Of Inaccurate Debate Answers

Written by Media Matters Staff

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On the October 29 edition of CNN's New Day, host Alisyn Camerota called out Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina for repeatedly making inaccurate statements in the presidential debates. During the October 28 CNBC debate, Fiorina falsely claimed that “92 percent of the jobs lost during Barack Obama's first term, belonged to women,” but Camerota explained that her faulty statistic was “a recycled talking point from the Mitt Romney campaign that they've deemed as false.” Camerota also pointed out that in the previous Republican debate, Fiorina made false statements about Planned Parenthood based on deceptively edited videos:

ALISYN CAMEROTA (HOST): Let's talk about a moment that you had last night. And it was about what Barack Obama has done for women, you say that unemployment among women has spiked. 

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 According to The Washington Post Fact Checker, that is a recycled talking point from the Mitt Romney campaign that they've deemed as false. They say that you were using a very narrow moment in time when unemployment among women had spiked, but since then, the numbers have changed and it's a much rosier picture for women. What's your response?

CARLY FIORINA: Well, first of all, it's The Washington Post that said I wasn't a secretary. So from my point of view, they have no credibility, honestly. The statistics are well-known. Here's another statistic, Alisyn, if you don't like that one, the extreme poverty rate among women is at the highest level ever recorded. The number of women living in poverty is at the highest level in 20 years. And every single policy that Hillary Clinton is now proposing, demonstrably, we have evidence that suggests it causes women to be fired, not to be hired. The record's very clear on this.

CAMEROTA: But is there newer data available that makes those numbers obsolete that you shouldn't have used the old numbers last night?

FIORINA: No, absolutely not. Wow, this is the same conversation we had after the last debate. Everybody came out and said I was using wrong data. No, I'm not using wrong data. The liberal media doesn't like the data. Perhaps the liberal media doesn't like the facts. The facts are clear. Women have been hit hardest by his recession and this lackluster economic recovery. That's just a fact. Women are suffering more than men. And by the way, African-Americans are suffering as well. All the groups that progressives claim to be helping are being hurt in this Barack Obama term. And of course, Hillary Clinton is going to double-down on every single one of these policies. Here's another fact that maybe The Washington Post won't like, but it's also true. Student loan has doubled under Barack Obama. Why? Because Barack Obama has nationalized the student loan industry. African-American unemployment remains almost twice as high as white unemployment. Maybe they don't like that stat either. But that stat is true.

CAMEROTA: During the last debate what people said was erroneous about what you said were about the Planned Parenthood sting videos, and that what came out afterwards was that there had been portions that had been edited. Do you change your opinion about those now?

FIORINA: Wow, Alisyn, I can't believe we're having this conversation, honestly. It's clear now, it's very clear that Planned Parenthood is harvesting body parts. So clear that they had to announce that that they no longer take compensation for it. Honestly, this has been hashed and rehashed is there no other issue of economic import to the middle class in the United States of America that you'd like to talk about this morning?

CAMEROTA: Well, I think we did just cover women and unemployment, and we did just talk about the numbers. You gave a lot of stats about how you feel women are doing right now. But that was the issue, that afterwards people went back at you about because they did feel as though those sting videos had been edited. And some people, let me go on, even felt that that is why your national poll numbers dipped. So I did want to get you on the record about that.

FIORINA: Oh, well, that's quite a theory. Well, that's quite a theory. All of the stats that I just quoted are true. They're out there. And as I say, it was The Washington Post that said I wasn't a secretary.