The Libertarian candidate for president has apparently not been keeping close tabs on the Syrian civil war that has decimated the country and created hundreds of thousands of refugees. As TalkingPointsMemo details the entire conversation…
“What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo?” Mike Barnicle asked Gary Johnson on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“About?” Johnson asked.
“Aleppo,” Barnicle repeated, referring to Syria’s second-largest city, which has been hit in recent weeks by a series of devastating chemical gas attacks and targeted bombing strikes on its few remaining medical facilities.
“And what is Aleppo?” Johnson asked sunnily, to the astonishment of the “Morning Joe” hosts.
“You’re kidding,” Barnicle said.
“No,” Johnson replied.
“Aleppo is in Syria. It’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis,” Barnicle said.
“Okay got it, got it,” Johnson said. “Well with regard to Syria I do think that it’s a mess. I think the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that to an end.”
The former New Mexico governor attributed the turmoil in Syria to “regime change.”
“Aleppo is the center of a lot of people’s concerns across the planet about the terrible humanitarian crisis that is unfolding not only in Syria, but especially in Aleppo,” Joe Scarborough interjected. “You asked ‘What is Aleppo?’ Do you really think that foreign policy is so insignificant that somebody running for president of the United States shouldn’t even know what Aleppo is, where Aleppo is, why Aleppo is so important?”
“I do understand Aleppo and I understand the crisis that is going on,” Johnson said. “But when we involve ourselves militarily, when we involve ourselves in these humanitarian issues, issues, we end up with a situation that in most cases is not better.”
Watch the clip below:
.@mikebarnicle: What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo? @GovGaryJohnson: And what is Aleppo? https://t.co/ZbqO5RAEsk
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) September 8, 2016