Orlando, Florida
During Thursday night’s debate, Rick Perry was asked the toughest and most substantive foreign policy question of the evening. Moderator Bret Baier wanted to know what Perry would do first, as president, if he received a 3 a.m. phone call “telling [him] that Pakistan had lost control of its nuclear weapons at the hands of the Taliban.”
Here was Perry’s response in full:
“I didn’t frankly understand what Governor Perry meant or said in response to that,” Rick Santorum said after the debate. During the debate, Santorum responded just after Perry’s question by saying “we should be establishing relationships in Pakistan with allies of ours” within the country, like Pervez Musharraf.
Eric Fehrnstrom, an adviser for Mitt Romney, called Perry’s answer “completely unintelligible,” “rambling,” and “incoherent.”
Kansas governor Sam Brownback, a Perry supporter, spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD after the debate about the question and Perry’s response. “I thought the initial response was accurate,” Brownback said. “You gotta have a relationship to know what’s going on. I’ve worked with the Pakistanis, and particularly in Pakistan you need a relationship, because the country’s a pretty unstable place, and it’s run by the army. You gotta know the guy that’s the head of the place.”
