MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mike Barnicle asked Johnson on Thursday what he would do about Aleppo, a major city in Syria that’s been engulfed by the nation’s civil war and the refugee crisis.
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Choate said Johnson’s response to the Aleppo question might hurt him with Utah voters, but he thinks it was an understandable mistake because Johnson was asked the question without proper context about Syria.
Speaking after the interview, Johnson said told reporters he “blanked” and later suggested he thought Aleppo may have been an acronym. “Yes, I understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict-I talk about them every day”. “You can’t fly into crisis mode every time that something happens that excites some people”.
But the exchange yesterday morning instantly thrust the former New Mexico governor under a global spotlight, with #WhatIsAleppo a trending hashtag and a red-faced Johnson scrambling to fend off suggestions he is a foreign-policy amateur.
Johnson’s gaffe occurred during an interview with MSNBC on the continuing battle for Syria’s biggest city, which has been the focal point between President Bashar Assad’s forces and rebel sectors. “I have to get smarter, and that’s just part of the process”, he added. Do I understand its significance? Yes.
The moment comes as Johnson and Weld are struggling to reach 15 percent in the polls, the threshold needed to get into the presidential debates, the first of which will be held September 26. A subsequent story titled, ‘What Is Aleppo?’ Gary Johnson Asks, in an Interview Stumble, ‘ screwed up the same issue, and the first effort to correct it only made it worse.
In Syria, he said, Washington needs “to join hands with Russian Federation to diplomatically bring that at an end” and the Free Syrian Army rebels the US has been supporting are “coupled with the Islamists”.
“I hope so because, I’m very aware of the policy”, he said Friday.
Former governor Bill Weld, running for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket, on Thursday shrugged off his running mate’s geopolitical flub earlier in the day, saying it could have happened to anyone and had been seized upon by “hystericists”.
Johnson made a point of critiquing the USA involvement and said the US needs to partner with Russian Federation to find a diplomatic solution.
Eventually, the outlet updated the story yet again, finally correctly identifying Aleppo as a “war-torn Syrian city”.
Recommended: Election 101: Who is Gary Johnson? If Johnson and Weld can not participate, Weld said they would stand outside the debate hall and answer the questions.
“Aleppo is in Syria….”
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The timing certainly wasn’t ideal: Mr. Johnson, who has hovered at around 10 percent in the polls, needs to reach 15 percent to qualify for the upcoming presidential debates.
