Trump says ‘robotic’ Fiorina’s surge will end

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump said Monday that GOP rival Carly Fiorina's surge will end when voters take a closer look at her business record, one that he says shows "tremendous failure."

Trump said Fiorina's contentious tenure as Hewlett-Packard's CEO and as a top executive at Lucent Technologies make her unelectable. Fiorina has been blamed by some for leading HP's troubled merger with Compaq and the subsequent dip in the company's stock price and the thousands of layoffs that followed, though Fiorina defenders insist her tenure at the head of that company is now increasingly being viewed as a success.

"When people see her record, I don't see how she could possibly win," Trump said Monday on NBC's "Today Show."

Fiorina's campaign declined to CNN to comment on the remarks.

Trump's comments came after a new CNN/ORC poll released Sunday showed Fiorina surging to second place with 15% of support. Trump maintained his status as the front-runner, but his support dropped 8 percentage points to 24%.

Trump also slammed Fiorina for failing to defeat Democratic incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer in California's 2010 Senate race and said Fiorina's business record is what sunk her prospects in that election.

Trump hit Fiorina's speaking style, saying that while "she's got a good line of pitter-patter," Fiorina repeats herself.

"She says the same thing over and over and over, but a lot of the people didn't hear it in the debate so they heard it for the first time. It's almost like robotic, frankly," Trump said.

"She's got a good line of pitter-patter but if you listen for 5 minutes you develop a tremendous headache," Trump added in a Fox News interview.