Donald J. Trump revealed gaps in his mastery of international affairs during a radio interview on Thursday, appearing to mistake the Quds Force, an Iranian military group, for the Kurds, a Middle Eastern people, and growing testy over questions about foreign leaders.
“You’re asking me names that — I think it’s somewhat ridiculous,” Mr. Trump told Hugh Hewitt, a popular conservative radio show host. “As far as the individual players, of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been, you know, in a position to meet them.”
At one point, Mr. Hewitt asked Mr. Trump if he was familiar with Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the shadowy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force.
“Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me,” Mr. Trump replied.
“He runs the Quds Forces,” Mr. Hewitt said.
“Yes, O.K., right,” Mr. Trump said.
But Mr. Trump seemed to think Mr. Hewitt was referring to the Kurds, a Sunni population with its own language and culture.
Mr. Trump asserted that “the Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated.”
Mr. Hewitt interrupted. “No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.”
Mr. Trump tried to recover from the live, on-air tutorial. “Yes, yes,” he said.
He added, “Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.”...
Mr. Hewitt said he was not interested in “gotcha” questions but wanted to be sure Mr. Trump had a baseline of knowledge about foreign leaders.
“On the front of Islamist terrorism, I’m looking for the next commander in chief to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?” Mr. Hewitt asked.
Mr. Trump’s answer was strikingly dismissive. “No, you know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone.”
On the topic of international leaders, Mr. Trump concluded with a touch of his trademark bravado, promising to become an authority on their names as president.
“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.”
He added, “I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.”
Friday, September 4, 2015
How Donald Trump Handled Some Gotcha Foreign Policy Questions
Via NYT:
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I don't know all those people. I guess if someone is running for President, they need to get up to speed on names, places, and history.
ReplyDeleteOf course this is a set up. You can do this with any candidate on a variety of issues. Look for this type of thing to increase as Trumps support grows. And this is one of the reasons it's growing. Hes seen as the outsider who is being attacked by the establishment. Heck, this attack alone might be good for a 3-5 point bounce!! Do I like Trump? Yeah, I admit it. There's something in the guy that I, as a libertarian, admire. Its the all too powerful office he seeks that bothers me.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of stuff to like about Ronald Dump the Trump. He's absolutely fearless and despises the media. He knows the system is rigged and the pols are paid off, because he has paid them off himself. He's a pragmatic opportunist as a businessman and might be able to actually pull off an upset over Shrillary and tone down his militarism once in office.
DeleteDo I want to count on that in this political and moral climate and pull the lever in the booth?
Different political question.
The money quote from Rand (the Panderer) interviewed over at Breitbart who said he would support Donald the Disaster was that:
" He’s not really conservative at all. He’s been for a single-payer healthcare system, he’s been for higher taxes. And really what bugs me the most is his business model has been using eminent domain to take private property from small property owners, gobble that up in order for him to make money."
IOW forget about who al - Baghdadi is. Does Donald know who Benito is and why the El Duce shouldn't be emulated?
Hugh Hewitt aspires to be mister Smithers to dick cheney's mister burns. Simple as that. Burns once referred to Smithers as his lick-spittle, and Smithers is perfectly ok with that. Why should trump care what a lick-spittle thinks? Trump only did Hugh a favour by appearing. I'm sure he's boosted Hugh's low listenership numbers.
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