Taking a dig at Gary Johnson, independent candidate Evan McMullin on Friday said he did not consider the Libertarian nominee to be “a serious candidate”, according to the Politico.
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Johnson pivoted to arguing against military interventions in foreign countries, and said that the refugee crisis “is the result of regime change that we end up supporting, and, inevitably, these regimes have led to a less safe world”.
Former Massachusetts Governor and current Libertarian vice presidential nominee Bill Weld sat down with WBZ political analyst Jon Keller to talk about his and Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson’s campaign, as well as his thoughts on the Republican and Democratic candidates.
“You’re kidding”, panelist Mike Barnicle said, clearly stunned by Johnson’s blatant lack of knowledge. We go into a disgusting situation, and at best, we reverse the tables and it’s just as awful but it’s our folks in charge. It is, in fact the city of Raqqa that is referred to as the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold in Syria.
A Washington Post-Survey Monkey poll released Wednesday found that Johnson, a former Republican who is often excluded from presidential polling, is supported by an average of 13 per cent across all states. For example, Johnson stirred excitement last month when he announced he had raised $2.9 million in the first two weeks of August. I’m running for president of the United States, and everything is fair game. The whole goal would be to get the Libertarian ticket level of support to 15% to get them into the presidentials debates. While Libertarians are very free-trade oriented, they are often criticized for being isolationist and lacking interest in foreign policy.
Weld estimated the chances that he and Johnson would land on the debate stage as “slightly above 50-50”.
The stumble could derail such hopes, and it was widely mocked on social media.
Mr. Johnson answered: “Well, no, I do understand Aleppo, and I understand the crisis that is going on”.
Additionally, he got into his belief that medicinal and recreational marijuana should be fully legalized.
Even Clinton had a laugh at his expense Thursday.
“What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?”.
The error couldn’t have come at a worse time for Johnson. After speaking at a Politico convention in June, he was being directed to a room that was named after Harriet Tubman, the former slave and abolitionist.
In an interview Friday on “New Day”, Weld told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that Johnson understood “the wider context” of the refugee crisis despite the high-profile slip. They just got their first endorsement from a major daily newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“It worked”, Johnson said in a statement.
“No”, Johnson replied, fumbling a bit.
“Sure it should”, he said when asked if the gaffe should be treated as significant.
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He acknowledged again on ABC’s The View that he had made a mistake.
