Appearing on CNN’s Boss Files with Poppy Harlow, failed Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said she believes it is “vital” for President Donald Trump to be impeached.
A partial transcript is as follows:
POPPY HARLOW: Do you believe President Trump should be impeached and removed from office?
CARLY FIORINA: I think he is going to be impeached and I think he won’t be removed from office.
HARLOW: Should he be removed from office?
…
FIORINA: I think it is vital that he be impeached — whether removed this close to an election, I don’t know. But I think the conduct is impeachable and what I regret is that the principles that are being debated in this impeachment trial — separation of powers, abuse of power, obstruction of Congress — those principles are not as immediate or intense as partisanship or people’s belief that the policies that I care about impact me personally. For example, there’s a large pro-life community in this country, and they feel disrespected by the Democrat Party, and my prediction is they will stand by Trump through everything because that issue is not only important to them, but it’s personal for them.
HARLOW: It is notable that you — a Republican who has run for office for the Senate as a Republican, for president as a Republican, who may run again as a Republican, is saying it is “vital that he be impeached.” What are you hearing from your Republican friends in the House and the Senate? Because it is crickets.
FIORINA: I don’t — my prediction would be that Republicans don’t break ranks. I think–
HARLOW: What is your message to them?
FIORINA: I’m not sure they’re listening to my message, honestly.
HARLOW: If they were, do you have a message to them?
FIORINA: I think my message is: in this country, hanging on to a job is not the most important thing. In this country, we don’t pledge allegiance to a party or to a president. In this country, principles matter — and in particular, the principle that we have co-equal branches of government and that no one is above the law and that it is Congress’s duty to oversee and to investigate the executive branch is a vital principle. Our Constitution was based on a fundamental belief that power concentrated is power abused. And we have to stand up for that principle. In the near term, it may cost. But in the long term, those principles are everything.
Earlier in the interview, Fiorina said she does not know whether Trump has been a “net positive” for the United States and said former President Barack Obama can take some credit for the current strong state of the economy.