Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson: ‘What is Aleppo?’

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson stunned a “Morning Joe” interviewer on Thursday when he appeared to be unfamiliar with Aleppo, the most populous city in Syria and the epicenter of the long and violent conflict that has sparked a global refugee crisis.

“What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?” journalist Mike Barnicle asked Johnson.

“And what is Aleppo?” the candidate replied.

Barnicle appeared flabbergasted. Earlier this week, Reuters labeled the city “the biggest prize in five years of relentless civil war” in Syria. An alleged chlorine-gas attack reportedly injured scores of people Tuesday in an eastern Aleppo neighborhood held by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“You’re kidding,” Barnicle told Johnson.

“No,” Johnson said.

“Aleppo is in Syria. It’s the epicenter of the refugee crises,” Barnicle began. Johnson then jumped back into the discussion to discuss his broader approach to Syria. “OK, got it. Got it. Well, with regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess. I think that the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that [to] an end,” he said.

Johnson suggested that the U.S. had made a mistake by supporting forces opposed to Assad in a war that also includes the so-called Islamic State terror group.

“But when we’ve … supported the opposition — the Free Syrian Army — the Free Syrian Army is also coupled with the Islamists. And then the fact that we’re also supporting the Kurds — and it’s just a mess,” he continued. “And this is the result of ‘regime change’ that we end up supporting. And inevitably these regime changes have led to a less safe world.”

Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, is hoping the electorate’s dissatisfaction with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump will boost him enough to make it into the presidential debates. He often polls in the high single digits, which is relatively high for a third-party candidate but short of the 15 percent threshold for the debates.

His comments about Aleppo immediately drew widespread commentary:

In a followup interview with Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin, Johnson said he felt “horrible” about the gaffe. “I have to get smarter and that’s just part of the process,” he admitted.

Watch Johnson discuss his “Morning Joe” interview with Halperin:

Later in the morning, Johnson released a statement in which he said he had “blanked” during his response to the Aleppo question:

“This morning, I began my day by setting aside any doubt that I’m human. Yes, I understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict — I talk about them every day. But hit with ‘What about Aleppo?’, I immediately was thinking about an acronym, not the Syrian conflict. I blanked. It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign.

Can I name every city in Syria? No. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes. Do I understand its significance? Yes.

As Governor, there were many things I didn’t know off the top of my head. But I succeeded by surrounding myself with the right people, getting to the bottom of important issues, and making principled decisions. It worked. That is what a President must do.

That would begin, clearly, with daily security briefings that, to me, will be fundamental to the job of being President.”