WASHINGTON (The News Hour) -- Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson issued a press release on Capitol Hill today, explaining his most recent comments on CNN regarding Aleppo and the Syrian migrant crisis.
Critics have suggested that Johnson's confusion on the existence of Aleppo, the epicenter of the latest global humanitarian crisis, raise doubts about his foreign policy knowledge and competency, potentially posing a larger threat to sink his already unnoticeable campaign.
Nonetheless, the 62 fans who attended the press conference heard a positive spin from the former New Mexico Governor. His argument was convincing, too.
With a commanding voice for his largest crowd yet, Johnson contended, "if the American public at large did not know about Aleppo and did not care about the city until I made the mistake, should my error really matter?"
Indeed, in one of the most stunning examples of the rare feat of bipartisanship, Democrats and Republicans just one year ago united to not care about the unfolding crisis.
Later in his speech, Johnson suggested that because the New York Times could not successfully identify Aleppo either, the media was biased, blowing his error out of proportion.
One conference attendee, Franklin Jones a 19 year old from nearby American University, said that "although it is demoralizing to see that neither the presidential candidate nor the most eminent American news publication could identify significant foreign policy locations, Johnson's honesty and humility in handling the situation only prove that he's human, just like the rest of us."
In contrast, after recent layoffs, the New York Times needed to rely on robots in the background to correct the misinformation. Unfortunately, the programmers too were laid off, so the robots needed more than one attempt at correcting the global publication's mistake.
However, the most convincing argument of the evening surfaced during the question and answer section of the press conference.
When asked if his comments should disqualify him from the presidential race, Johnson countered, "They did not let me in the televised debates anyway - I am just going to go smoke some weed after this."
Unsurprisingly, other political figures had thoughts on Johnson's slip up, and the responses varied.
Bernie Sanders (I) had little to say about Johnson's error, besides agreeing with Johnson that the US has notoriously destabilized regions for profit via regime change politics. Sanders did, however, inform the media that he would be smoking marijuana with Johnson later that evening.
Meanwhile, Ted Cruz (R) was especially disappointed. He hoped to solve his rhetorical question posed earlier in the presidential campaign cycle in which he stated he "did not know if sand could glow in the dark, but after the illegal carpet bombing he had planned, we would all find out." Cruz's spokesperson Annie Culter suggested that Johnson's campaign should not be considered serious unless he knows where to " [sic] drop all the bombs."
The mainstream current presidential candidates offered their thoughts also. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump (?) tweeted that not only did he know where Aleppo was, but, if elected president, he would make it great again.
Other presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton (D) also recently tweeted about the situation, asking who Gary Johnson was.
With election day coming closer, political tensions are clearly high. We can only see where things go from here.
