Election 2020: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Enjoys Break Out Moment On Fox News Town Hall

Like candidates before her appearing on a Fox News town hall, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York enjoyed a break out moment on Sunday, apart from the sprawling field of Democratic presidential primary hopefuls, during which she took on border walls, reproductive freedom, her conservative voting record and even took a jab at the network.

Gillibrand’s biggest moment in the one-hour town hall in Dubuque, Iowa, came when host Chris Wallace asked her to explain a December 2018 tweet in which she said the future was “female” and “intersectional.”

“We want women to have a seat at the table,” she said, after which Wallace rejoined with, “What about men?”

“They’re already there – do you not know?” Gillibrand said, receiving one of her biggest rounds of applause for the evening. She added the statement was not meant to be exclusionary, “it’s meant to be inclusionary.”

Within an hour of the program, a 10-second clip of the exchange with Wallace was tweeted from Gillibrand’s social media account, giving her campaign a much-needed boost.

Wallace closed the exchange with, “All right, we’re not threatened.”

For nearly five months, Gillibrand’s campaign has failed to gain momentum. She ranks in the lower tier of the 23-candidate field, and has not met required benchmarks needed to reserve a spot on the dias in upcoming Democratic debates. For the first two debates scheduled at the end of June and July, candidates must either receive donations from more than 65,000 unique contributors, or register at least one percent in a number of qualifying polls. They also must show they have received at least 200 donations in at least 20 states.

For the third and fourth debates held in September and October, the requirements essentially double, with candidates needing both a 2% showing in the qualifying polls and at least 130,000 grassroots contributions. Six Democratic debates are planned in 2019 with another six planned in 2020.

Gillibrand made an obvious request during the town hall for voters to support her so she can participate in the upcoming debates. While she didn’t criticize the DNC requirements to qualify for participation in the debates, she said she didn’t believe the standards were a good measure of success.

After a question about late-term abortions, Gillibrand attacked Fox News for what she said was its role in the “false narrative” about abortion rights. Wallace countered, saying “I understand, maybe, to make your credentials with the Democrats who are not appearing on Fox News, you want to attack us, I’m not sure it’s frankly very polite when we’ve invited you to be here.”

Gillibrand then said she would critique the network politely.

She added she is the leading presidential candidate on women’s issues today.