Carly Fiorina Calls Planned Parenthood Shooter a 'Protester,' Decries 'Left-Wing Tactics'

In an interview this morning with Fox News Sunday, Republican primary candidate Carly Fiorina said that attempts to link Friday’s Planned Parenthood shooting with anti-abortion rhetoric were “typical left-wing tactics.”

Fiorina was responding to a statement by Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. In her statement, Cowart said, “We’ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months. That environment breeds acts of violence.” Fiorina rejected the connections made by Cowart saying, “This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message. The vast majority of Americans agree what Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong.”

The former HP President has been one of the most public defenders of the series of deceptively edited videos released by the Center for Medical Progress. CMP, headed by David Daleiden, claims that Planned Parenthood is engaged in the illegal harvesting and sale of fetal remains. During the September GOP primary debate, Fiorina passionately claimed that the CMP videos showed “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.’” Though the statement struck a chord with primary voters—Fiorina’s numbers did a sharp, but brief, climb—it was patently false. Despite that, Fiorina has stood by the statement, issuing a series of videos that ostensibly backed her claims.

And Fiorina seems to be sticking to her proverbial guns. Though she called the murder of three people (one that appears to be motivated by ideology) a “tragedy,” she added, “Any protesters should always be peaceful. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter or pro-life protesters.”