Libertarian vice presidential candidate Bill Weld defended Gary Johnson on CNN Friday for failing to identify Aleppo, by saying it is easy to get confused when it comes to Syria.
“There are a lot of towns in Syria. There’s Aleppo, there’s Homs, there’s Palmyra, there’s Damascus,” said Weld.
Weld also noted that the New York Times on Thursday got a few basic facts wrong about the country, including when it incorrectly reported that Aleppo is the capital of Syria. “The Times is paid to get these things right also,” he said.
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has been roundly mocked for asking “What is Aleppo?” in response to a question on MSNBC Thursday about what he would propose to do about the growing humanitarian crisis in the city at the heart of the Syrian civil war.
“I think Gary didn’t realize the context was Syria or geography or anything like that,” said Weld, who repeated Johnson’s defense that he thought Aleppo was an acronym. “It is just a linguistic matter,” said Weld.
When asked whether he thought the gaffe would harm their campaign, Weld said, “I suppose we are going to have to wait and see whether people think that not picking up on the name of a town in Syria is a mortal or venial sin. I don’t think it does a great deal.”
