On Thursday, anti-Trump talker Hugh Hewitt grilled Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on international terror leaders, including the heads of Hezbollah, ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Even CNN senior political adviser David Gergen said it was a “gotcha” interview.
** The GOP invited Hugh Hewitt to moderate the next debate on CNN.
Hewitt previously said he does not believe Trump has the temperament to be president of the United States.
This morning Trump called Hewitt a “third-rate radio announcer“ after the pop quiz.
Rush Limbaugh today told his mega-audience that Hewitt’s pop quiz won’t hurt Donald Trump.
Via The Rush Limbaugh Show:
Okay, let’s get… First, I think probably what everybody here wants some clarification on — or at least some analysis of or explanation of or discussion of — is Trump and his inability to identify certain names thrown at him on the radio, names of Al-Qaeda leaders, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Quds Force leaders and so forth. It’s real simple here, folks, and I guess I should address this to the Republican establishment and like-minded. If you think this is going to harm Trump with his supporters, it won’t.
It didn’t hurt George W. Bush when he was unable to do the same. It didn’t hurt Ronaldus Magnus when he was unable to do the same thing. But it specifically isn’t gonna hurt Trump’s people because Trump, A, had a fairly decent answer. (summarized) “It doesn’t matter. These guys are all gonna be gone by the time I’m elected.” But, anyway, that’s not the point. I want to get some historical perspective. Let’s start here first off with what Trump said. This was on the Hugh Hewitt show last night. He’s interviewing Trump.
This guy Hewitt, by the way, is one of the CNN moderators. He is the conservative Republican moderator CNN has chosen. He used to be in the Reagan White House. He’s a graduate of Harvard. Solid guy, nice guy. No problem with Hugh Hewitt. He has his own technique, has his own way of doing his program and vetting presidential candidates. He asked the same questions later of Carly Fiorina. She was able to ace them all. So now we got comparisons, by the way.
“You know what? You know what?” they’re saying in the Drive-By Media. “Why, this just like Sarah Palin! Sarah Palin, she didn’t do the homework. She didn’t study. She thought she could wing her way through and look what happened to her.” They’re saying that Trump is on the same path that Sarah Palin was on. Not, of course, noting the profound differences.
Anyway, here’s the question. We have one of two. “At the debate…” Hugh Hewitt was telling Trump, “At the debate, I may bring up Nasrallah being with Hezbollah and al-Julani being with al-Nusra and al-Masri being with Hamas. Do you think if I asked people to talk about those three things and the differences, that that’s a gotcha question?”…
….These questions are never asked of Democrats, by the way. Make note of this: The question that Trump got, Democrats will never get those questions in the normal ebb and flow of things. Hillary will never get them. Clinton will never get ’em. Never did. It’s just… They are questions that are designed to further the narrative that Republicans are just not bright; they’re just not hip.
And when it works on one of them, then every other Republican is gonna start getting the same treatment. For example, if they can expose, say, a Sarah Palin who doesn’t know an answer like this, “A-ha! Let’s start asking the others, too.” So Reagan got questions like this. He was asked to name various obscure heads of state. Reagan’s answer was the best. Reagan said… I’m paraphrasing. He said, “It doesn’t matter if I know their names. They need to know mine,” and that shut it down. Trump saying, “It doesn’t matter. They’re not gonna be there by the time I get inaugurated, and even if they are, in 24 hours I’m gonna know more about these people.
“Because I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna find the wonks, and I’m gonna find the geeks. I’m gonna find the foreign policy experts are gonna tell me all about this. I’m a delegator. I’m gonna tell ’em to deal with it. We’re gonna deal with it once and for all. Hamas, Hezbollah, what do you need to know? They’re terrorist organizations, and they need to be wiped out. That’s all anybody needs to know,” and answers like that are gonna resonate. Trump’s inability to name names or identify certain names? It’s not gonna hurt him with his supporters.
Read the rest here.
