Fiorina calls for global crackdown on human traffickers
From her mic-dropping response to Donald Trump's comments about her looks to her open appeal to women voters, Carly Fiorina is getting high marks for her performance at the second primetime Republican debate.
But the former Hewlett-Packer CEO is not stopping there.
Fiorina is now calling for the U.S. to play a "major role" in humanitarian relief efforts in the European migrant crisis and lead in "a global effort to go after human traffickers once and for all." Thursday on "CBS This Morning," she blamed President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for what she called failed leadership and inaction.
"Many of these people are sold a bill of goods tragically by human traffickers who then take their money and unfortunately, too often their lives," Fiorina said. "We need to crack down on human trafficking wherever it is, and clearly there is a lot, moving people from the Middle East into Europe."
While she described the current situation in Europe as "very heartbreaking," she does harbor some concerns about welcoming refugees to the U.S.
"Certainly, if we have people who truly are fleeing persecution, we ought to allow them to go through the processes in this country to receive asylum and we are doing that," Fiorina said. "On the other hand, we cannot welcome everyone who are seeking economic opportunity if we cannot guarantee that they are not terrorists."
During the primetime debate, which she qualified for after standing out in the "happy hour" early debates in August and subsequently rising in the polls, Fiorina also attracted some attention for her answer to a lightning round question about which woman she'd choose to feature on the $10 bill.
"I don't think it helps to change our history. What I would think is that we ought to recognize that women are not a special interest group. Women are the majority of this nation. We are half the potential of this nation, and this nation will be better off when every woman has the opportunity to live the life she chooses," she said Wednesday night, as the only woman on stage among 11 presidential hopefuls.
Fiorina reiterated on "CBS This Morning" that politics is full of "empty gestures," and people are tired of it.
"Honestly it's an empty gesture to put a woman's face on a 10 or a 20 dollar bill when three and a half million more women have fallen into poverty in the last six years. It's an empty gesture when the burdens of poverty or single parenthood fall most heavily on women. It's an empty gesture when we are not yet tapping the full potential of every man and woman in this country, and we're not, and that is why I'm running for president," Fiorina said.
Her strong performance in the first debate gave her a bump in fundraising along with her poll numbers, and she's hoping to see a similar boost after the positive reviews of Wednesday's debate.
"I think you know, what we saw in this last debate, August 6, where less than 40 percent of the people had heard my name, what we saw was a big bump in the fundraising. We saw a bump in the polls and I suspect and hope we'll see the same thing out of this debate," Fiorina said.