“I feel awful”, Johnson told Mark Halperin of Bloomberg Politics.
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Viewers on social media were in disbelief, with one person tweeting, “Give me one smart voter who is for Johnson after this, and I will give you a dumb voter”. But one very pressing question stumped him.
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson admits it wasn’t the best mistake to make.
Barnicle had asked Johnson what he would do about Aleppo if he were elected, but didn’t offer any context that might help the long-shot candidate decipher what was being asked. In case you’re uncertain yourself, it was Syria’s most populous city before the civil war began in 2011.
He added: “I think that the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russian Federation to diplomatically bring that at an end”. Many have criticised Barack Obama’s administration for doing too little, particularly after a failed promise that the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government represented the ultimate “red line, ” and would prompt intervention.
In 2014, a US -led coalition began airstrikes on Islamic State group targets, and later, sent USA special forces to assist allied fighters. “Aleppo. not knowing there is a city in between the two forces at the epicentre, or not remembering, or identifying that, that is Aleppo”.
The blow back from Johnson’s Morning Joe appearance was immediate. “Well, you can look at the map and find Aleppo”, she said.
Johnson put out a statement after the show saying he was thinking about an acronym rather than the Syrian conflict when he was asked the question.
In a statement, the Libertarian Party nominee said: ‘This morning, I began my day by setting aside any doubt that I’m human’. ‘It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign’.
“Can I name every city in Syria?” I think 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. Do I understand its significance?
Johnson’s question “What is Allepo?” was meant with disdain… In the 10 most recent Trump vs. Clinton polls listed on RealClearPolitics, an average of 12.5 percent of people chose neither candidate. Johnson got a bit of a boost from former GOP nominee Mitt Romney, who has advocated for Johnson to be included in the debates as a Trump alternative, although he stopped short of offering Johnson his full endorsement, according to the Washington Post.
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One of the third-party candidates in the USA presidential election has been ridiculed after being wrong-footed by a question on a key Syrian battleground.
