Speaking to Emerson College and The Boston Globe Thursday, Libertarian vice presidential nominee William Weld defended his running mate Gary Johnson for his supposed “gaffe” on Aleppo.
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“What is Aleppo?” Johnson said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” after being asked what he would do about the situation in the city.
Asked on MSNBC what he would do, if elected president, about Aleppo, the city at the centre of the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, Johnson earnestly asked: “What is Aleppo?”.
In a written statement, Johnson said he understands the dynamics of the Syrian conflict, “but hit with ‘What about Aleppo?’, I immediately was thinking about an acronym, not the Syrian conflict”.
Johnson went on to say the United States should “join efforts with Russian Federation to end the conflict in Syria diplomatically” while adding that the conflict was the result of regime change gone badly.
When the interviewer explained that Aleppo was a city in war-torn Syria Johnson responded with “Okay, got it”. It’s a twisted tale full of lies and deception, which ends with Nabakov writing that it “may all end in Aleppo if I am not careful” – just like Johnson’s political hopes.
Asked what effect the gaffe might have on the campaign, Weld said, “We’ll have to wait and see whether people think that not picking up on the name of a town in Syria is a mortal sin”. “I understand the significance”.
As Nancy Reagan once said,”Just say no” to drugs. and Gary Johnson.
Republican nominee Donald Trump leaves many in Utah cold despite the state’s deep-red credentials, but voters eyeing third-party candidate Gary Johnson may be feeling some whiplash Thursday. Despite it being a city were the atrocities against humans come in many horrific forms, such as chemical warfare, they have not received help from the United States.
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. He added, “I don’t think it does a great deal”.
As Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin noted, Johnson probably is not the stronger half of the Libertarian ticket when in comes to foreign policy.
Johnson then apparently postponed and interview later Thursday morning on a NY talk radio program.
He also compared Trump’s campaign to Big Brother in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” and said unlike Trump, he and Johnson would fly the GOP banner “without the mean-spiritedness”.
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“I don’t think I can vote for him”, she said, “especially because national security is the No. 1 issue for me”.
