Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson suggested on Tuesday that the United States would be less likely to engage in foreign conflicts if its president did not have a firm grasp on world geography.
During an interview on MSNBC, Johnson became testy as he defended a series of recent foreign policy gaffes, including not knowing about the Syrian city of Aleppo and being unable to name a single foreign leader.
"Talking about a foreign leader I respect, I have a hard time with that one," Johnson told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell. "That's just who I am. And now I'm going to have to pick out a world leader and there's going to be something wrong with them. And now I'm going to have to defend them! Well, maybe I think too much."
"You are running to be commander-in-chief," Mitchell reminded the candidate.
"Yeah, and you know what?" Johnson trumpeted back. "The fact that somebody can dot the i's and cross the t's on a foreign leader or a geographic location then allows them to put our military in harm's way!"
"We put our military in this horrible situation where we go in and support regime change," he continued. "They get involved in civil wars where hundreds of thousands of innocent people are in a crossfire. We're literally shooting at ourselves because we support both sides of conflicts!"
Although Johnson later agreed that presidents should "have a working knowledge of what's going on," he continued to shout at Mitchell for putting "faith and trust" in candidates who were "knowledgeable."
"Politicians that put our men and women, service men and women in harms way," he opined. "They're getting killed, they're getting maimed, they're getting injured, they're getting psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives!"
Watch the video below from MSNBC, broadcast Oct. 4, 2016.
