He’s been smoking too much.
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Johnson’s blunder was also mocked by Christopher Hill, a former United States ambassador to Iraq, but then Hill embarrassingly got confused and made the same error as the NYT by referring to Aleppo as the ISIS capital.
The gaffe came during an MSNBC interview about the continuing battle for Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, which has been divided for years into government and rebel sectors and has been in the news daily in recent weeks.
The MSNBC Commentator asked what he would do about Aleppo, and Johnson said “What’s Aleppo?”
“Probably 85 percent of the people in the country couldn’t put Aleppo on a map, so I’m not sure the outcome of the slip is going to be lasting at all”, Weld said. “Yes, I understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict-I talk about them every day”.
“And when I heard the question “Aleppo”, I’m thinking in terms of acronym – what does that stand for? I think that can happen to anyone”, Weld said.
“What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo”, Johnson was asked.
Johnson admitted during his interview on “The View” that he had genuinely forgotten about the city of Aleppo. “What we really need to be talking about is Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump”. “I guess people will have to make that judgment”, he said.
“I think probably 85 percent of the people couldn’t put Allepo on the map”, he said.
McMullin, who launched his longshot White House last month, challenged Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein this week to an undercard presidential debate, saying voters “deserve as many options as they can get”.
Johnson seemed to recognize the peril of the Aleppo error.
While his party generally plays on the fringes of American politics – as the Libertarian candidate in 2012, Johnson took only one per cent of the popular vote – he is expected to be the choice of at least some Americans disillusioned by the historically unpopular major party candidates. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes.
“As Governor, there were many things I didn’t know off the top of my head”.
A Washington Post-Survey Monkey poll released Wednesday found that Johnson, who is hardly ever included in presidential polling, is supported by an average of 13 per cent across all states.
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”, Johnson said.
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“Aleppo is the center of a lot of people’s concerns across the planet about the bad humanitarian crisis that is unfolding not only in Syria, but especially in Aleppo”, Scarborough pressed.
