Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump denounced “gotcha” journalism Friday morning, less than 24 hours after radio show host Hugh Hewitt stumped the billionaire with a foreign policy question on his program.
During an interview with Hewitt Thursday evening, the leading GOP candidate was unable to differentiate between leading terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas, saying he would know the difference “when it’s appropriate,” and mistook the Quds Force, a special forces unit in Iran, for the Kurds.
Asked if he was familiar with the Quds’ commander, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Trump told Hewitt “Yes, but go ahead, give me a little … tell me.”
“The Kurds, by the way, have been very horribly mistreated,” Trump went on, before Hewitt jumped in to correct him.
“No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces,” he told Trump.
Trump called in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday to discuss an array of issues, including the exchange between him and Hewitt.
“It was like ‘gotcha, gotcha, gotcha,'” the New York businessman told a panel of pundits. “Every question was, do I know ‘this one’ or ‘that one.'”
In addition to being asked about Soleimani, the Republican front-runner was quizzed on his knowledge of key “players” in the Middle East. Hewitt named Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah.
Unable to identify either terrorist leader, Trump resorted to accusing the conservative radio host of unfairly administering a history test.
“Those are like history questions. ‘Do you know this one, do you know that one,'” he said Thursday. “As far as the individual players, of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been in a position to meet them. If they’re still there, which is unlikely in many cases — but if they’re still there, I will know them better than I know you.”
The former reality TV host said Friday that Hewitt appeared out to get him.
“It was like he worked hard on that,” he told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough.
“When [Hewitt] said ‘Quds’ versus ‘Kurds,’ I thought he said ‘Kurds’ — this third-rate radio announcer that I did his show,” he added.
Trump and Hewitt will face off again in less than two weeks at the second Republican primary debate on Sept. 16. The radio host and former Reagan administration official is slated to moderate the debate, hosted by CNN, alongside the network’s chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper.
