Donald Trump, the bombastic billionaire Republican frontrunner, gadfly and endless well of headline fodder, has opinions about the tech business. Specifically, they are about the career of Carly Fiorina, his fellow GOP Presidential contender and former Hewlett-Packard CEO.
Trump on Carly Fiorina: ‘Hewlett-Packard Was a Disaster’
Fiorina’s troubled tenure at HP and Lucent return to the race, courtesy of The Donald.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
And surprise! They are not flattering opinions.
“She had tremendous — you could call it bad luck. You can call it — she did a bad job,” Trump told John Dickerson from CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “Hewlett-Packard was a disaster. Lucent, the company she was at before Hewlett-Packard, was a disaster. These were two disastrous reigns.”
Trump was trying to walk back comments he gave about Fiorina to Rolling Stone last week. “Look at that face!” Trump was quoted saying. “Would anyone vote for that?” Trump has said he was referring to her “persona,” not her physical appearance. (The Rolling Stone journalist disagrees.) Fiorina, for her part, has used Trump’s comments as a campaign rallying cry.
On Fiorina’s record in the private sector, however, Trump’s case has some legs. Fiorina had a contentious time at Hewlett-Packard, which she left in 2005 rather than face a potential ouster from the board. And, as Re/code’s Arik Hesseldahl documented thoroughly, her tenure at Lucent Technologies was riddled with deeper troubles.
Of course, Trump’s own business record is far from unimpeachable, despite his high-flying rhetoric of business acumen. Businessweek went very long on the many faults of Trump’s empire in its latest cover issue.
“I have some of the greatest assets in the world,” the real estate magnate-turned-politician said on Sunday. “I’m not saying that to brag, John. I’m just saying that’s the kind of mindset this country needs.”
You can watch the full three-minute long interview here.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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