“And what is Aleppo?”.
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Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson may have had a rough 24 hours following comments he made regarding the Syrian city of Aleppo, but third party candidates have managed to have some good luck with at least one audience in a recent poll. But any momentum may have been halted by Johnson’s stumbling on MSNBC yesterday, replying, “What is Aleppo?” when he was asked what he’d do about the city as a hotbed of the refugee crisis.
“Aleppo is in Syria – it’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis”, Barnicle said. When reminded by MSNBC on Thursday, Mr. Johnson said he’d work with Russian Federation to find a diplomatic solution to the civil war and that the conflict was an example of the dangers of meddling in the region.
Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, is seeking inclusion in upcoming presidential debates against Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, which require a candidate receive 15 per cent in polls to participate.
Johnson needs to reach 15 percent in an average of polls to gain a debate spot. Supporters of Johnson and his vice presidential running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, hope that debates would let the ticket broadcast its socially liberal and fiscally conservative message to a far broader audience than the people who attend his rarely covered rallies. Though this seemed to have been bourne out of Johnson’s genuine admiration for Weld, it also lent seriousness to his candidacy.
“I certainly plan to focus my analysis on Mr. Trump rather than Mrs. Clinton”, Weld said in a sit-down interview with the Herald yesterday.
Johnson has been said to give the appearance of being a daily marijuana smoker, which is pretty much what he says he is. But when asked about Aleppo, I thought at the time they were saying an acronym, not something related to the conflict in Syria. “I understand the significance”.
Eventually, the outlet updated the story yet again, finally correctly identifying Aleppo as a “war-torn Syrian city”.
But, he said, “I succeeded by surrounding myself with the right people, getting to the bottom of important issues, and making principled decisions”.
Johnson is now polling at around 9 percent. “It worked. That is what a President must do”, he wrote.
Asked about the Libertarian candidate’s lack of knowledge about Aleppo during a news conference, she said, “You can look on the map and find Aleppo”.
“No one is taking this more seriously than me, I feel disgusting”, he said.
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In a separate interview on ABC’s The View, Johnson explained that he wasn’t trying to make any excuses about his mistake, telling the hosts, “For those who believe this is a disqualified, so be it”.
