Thread: Trump angered by detailed foreign policy questions during interview

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34135543

Trump angered by detailed foreign policy questions during interview

Anthony Zurcher North America reporter

4 September 2015
From the section US & Canada

A sit-down with popular conservative radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt has become a rite of passage for Republican presidential hopefuls. In fact, he's interviewed candidates at least 70 times so far this year.

Hewitt takes pride in asking guests questions on foreign policy and defence issues. Although the atmosphere is generally good-natured, the specificity of his inquiries can expose gaps in a candidate's knowledge.

Republican presidential nomination front-runner Donald Trump either didn't know this - or didn't care. And the foreign-policy gaps on display during his talk with Hewitt on Thursday often appeared more like chasms.

After the interview Mr Trump went on the attack - as he often does with those he feels have slighted him. He said Hewitt is a "third-rate announcer" who tried to catch him with "gotcha questions".

He reportedly threatened to never do any more interviews with Hewitt. That doesn't mean he won't see the radio host again, however. Hewitt is set to ask questions at the next Republican presidential debate, on 16 September.

Here are some of Mr Trump's more notable comments during Thursday's interview.
Image copyright AFP
Image caption "Soleimani (above) is to terrorism sort of what Trump is to real estate," Hewitt said.

Quds and Kurds

Hewitt opened the interview with a question about General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, which has been linked to covert actions abroad.

Mr Trump apparently misheard Hewitt and launched into a discussion of the Kurds in Iraq.

When Hewitt corrected Mr Trump and told him the Quds Force "is the bad guys", he replied: "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said Kurds, because I think the Kurds have been poorly treated by us."

"Soleimani is to terrorism sort of what Trump is to real estate," Hewitt said.

"Is he the gentleman that was going back and forth with Russia and meeting with Putin?" Mr Trump asked. "I read something, and that seems to be also where he's at."

"Not good for us," Mr Trump concluded.
Image copyright AP
Image caption Al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri (left) Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the so-called Islamic State
Players without a scorecard

From there Hewitt rattled off a list of Mid-East figures - Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Muhammed al-Julani of al-Nusra Front and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the so-called Islamic State. "Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?" Hewitt asked.

"I knew you were going to ask me things like this, and there's no reason, because number one, I'll find, I will hopefully find General Douglas MacArthur in the pack," the real estate mogul responded.

He added that the names change so often, such questions are like "history lessons".

"When you're asking me about who's running this, this, this, that's not, that is not, I will be so good at the military, your head will spin," he concluded.

Hewitt went on to ask about China, for which he posed a hypothetical. What would President Trump do, he asked, if the Chinese military were to "accidentally or intentionally sink a Filipino or Japanese ship"?

Mr Trump said that one of his strengths was his unpredictability, so he wasn't going to tip his hand.

"You don't want to let people know what you're going to do with respect to certain things that happen," he said. "If I win, and I'm leading in every single poll, if I win, I don't want people to know exactly what I'm going to be doing."

Not every question during the interview was about foreign policy. Hewitt touched on gun rights, Mr Trump's health, his divorce record and how, as chief executive, he would handle disasters.

On that last topic, the New York billionaire gave no ground.

"I've responded very much to disasters," he said. "I've had, you know, fires in buildings, big buildings."

Toward the end of the interview, Hewitt returned again to the Mid-East and Mr Trump's obvious chaffing at the detailed nature of the questioning.

"So the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas does not matter to you yet, but it will?" Hewitt asked.

"It will when it's appropriate," Mr Trump replied. "I will know more about it than you know, and believe me, it won't take me long. I will know far more than you know within 24 hours after I get the job."

I agree with Trump on this. These questions while okay to ask, there's still nothing wrong with not knowing the answer, and here's why:

Are we to assume for the sake of argument that Obama knows who all these people are? And John Kerry? And Hillary Clinton?

Lets say yes.

What good has it done them? The situation is worse than it's ever been. So it seems to me that knowing these thugs by name and organization were of no proven value at all with regards to management and outcome. It takes far more than knowing a Hitler by name to eradicate him. A fact most Americans at least, already know.

So give Trump an A and Big Bump Up.

Also as for Carly Fiorina knowing who some of these people were, she was interviewed at least an hour or so after Trump, so she heard his interview. If you read her answers, they were straight out of Wikipedia, so she's home, with her friend Google listening to Trump and waiting for her call from Hugh Hewitt.

trump you did very good

It appears that Hugh Hewitt's needs to be run out of talk radio land and added to our list of illegal alien amnesty supporters

http://www.alipac.us/f12/gop-radio-h...9/#post1472529

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

It appears that Hugh Hewitt's needs to be run out of talk radio land and added to our list of illegal alien amnesty supporters

http://www.alipac.us/f12/gop-radio-h...9/#post1472529

W

ABSOLUTELY!! Any "conservative" who continues to listen to his show is not only not a "conservative", they're not even a Republican.

Trump is an executive. An executive doesn't need to be intimately familiar with all the finer details. That's what expert advisers are for. The executive makes the policy decisions.

If I have an electrical problem in my house, I don't need to be an expert on wiring installation. I hire an electrician. If I have a plumbing issue, I hire a plumber. If I need to figure out how best to invest my money for retirement, I hire a financial adviser. I know what I want done and I hire expert advisers to help me figure out how best to do it.

Contact Us

Call the Show:800.520.1234
Email the Show:hugh@hughhewitt.com
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Mr. Hewitt go perform a physically impossible sex act upon yourself.

Obama is on tape as saying there are “57 States.” He also did not know how to pronounce the word (military) corps men. Pronouncing the silent “p” at the end of the word, i.e. “corps” men, you know like a human cadaver.

There are other gaffs Obama made that the Marxists suck up "news" media will never report.

Is Hugh Hewitt on Zuckerberger's or Soros' secret payroll?---just asking.