It was pretty surreal. Her argument was the high death toll is just capitalist propaganda and the death toll was no where near the 40+ million that is commonly agreed upon. I want to know if there's any truth to her claim.
In regards to the Great Leap Forward, no.
I should mention that the commonly agreed upon number is closer to around 26-30 million people dead, and not the 40 million plus that you're claiming in the OP (unless you're including Stalin's Five Year Plan into that number, in which case, uhhh). The number is based off of demographic studies, in particular using the birth rates from the 1980s census and using household data from the time period (adjusted to account for intentional underreporting, which is a known issue).
I'm more than happy to source upon request. :)