In a follow up interview just after the show with Bloomberg News’ Mark Halperin, a frequent guest analyst on “Morning Joe”, Johnson said he was “incredibly frustrated” with himself but admitted he’d been caught flat-footed.
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Gary Johnson sealed his place in political history Thursday with his “What is Aleppo?” flub. Johnson is still suffering the slings and arrows of critics for not knowing the Syrian city at the center of the refugee crisis that’s rocking the world.
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. Johnson initially said “What is Aleppo?” then offered an answer when reminded it’s Syria’s largest city. He said he was “guilty” of not remembering Aleppo was a central city in the Syrian conflict.
“I don’t think it has any impact on the debates except perhaps to increase our name recognition”, Weld said.
“I do understand Aleppo”, he continued later in the interview. “I understand the significance”.
“I know there are self-appointed hystericists mostly located in the NY blog community who think it’s really awful, but let’s wait and see”, he added. Probably 85 percent of the people in the country couldn’t put Aleppo on a map, so I’m not sure the effect of the slip is going to be lasting at all. “It worked. That is what a President must do”, he wrote. The Commission on Presidential Debates requires that presidential candidates draw at least a 15 percent average in five public polls.
Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, has been campaigning for a spot on the stage at the first presidential debate September 26.
Mr. Johnson also said he thought the question was a fair one since he’s running for president.
Foreign policy isn’t high on the priority for a lot of voters, but “it certainly wasn’t a great moment for Gary Johnson”, Karpowitz said.
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.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been googling “What is Aleppo?” after Libertarian presidential nominee stumbled over the question Thursday morning on MSNBC.
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If you didn’t know about Aleppo before today don’t feel too embarrassed because even major news publications didn’t seem to know.
