Donald Trump (Donaldjtrump.com)
When conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt quizzed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Thursday about his knowledge of terrorist-group leaders, the talker named figures associated with ISIS, Hezbollah, Iran’s Al Quds force and Hamas.
But the Hamas figure he named is only a media spokesman and member of Parliament, and does not serve in a decision-making or militant capacity in the terrorist organization. The recognized leader of Hamas is Khaled Mashal.
Hugh Hewitt
Hewitt will co-moderate the upcoming Republican presidential debate Sept. 16 in California.
“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?” Hewitt asked Trump.
“Yes, I do, I totally do,” Trump replied.
Hassan Nasrallah is Hezbollah’s well-known secretary general, serving as the face of the Iranian-backed terrorist organization.
Abu Mohammad al-Julani is the leader and emir of al-Nusra Front, which is a State Department-designated terrorist organization fighting in Syria.
Hewitt’s Al-Masri reference can only be Mushir al-Masri.
Contrary to some previous social media descriptions, al-Masri does not occupy any formal position in Hamas’s so-called military wing. While he has influence in Hamas’s politburo as a media spokesman and member of Parliament, he is seen as part of the group’s second-tier and is not considered to be among Hamas’s top-ranking members.
In an interview Friday on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, Trump described Hewitt as a “third-rate radio announcer” who was posing “gotcha questions,” Politico reported.
“It was like, ‘gotcha, gotcha.’ Every question was do I know this one and that one. You know, he worked hard on that.”
In the radio interview Thursday, Hewitt also asked Trump, “Are you familiar with General Soleimani?”
Qasem Soleimani is commander of the Iran Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, which oversees the group’s extraterritorial military and clandestine operations.
Hewitt correctly characterized Soleimani.
“Many people would say he’s the most dangerous man in the world, and he runs the Quds Forces, which is their Navy SEALs,” he said.
“Is he the gentleman that was going back and forth with Russia and meeting with Putin?” asked Trump. “I read something, and that seems to be also where he’s at.”
The rest of the exchange went like this, according to a RealClearPolitics transcript:
HH: That’s the guy.
DT: He’s going back and forth meeting with other countries, etc., etc.
HH: That’s the guy.
DT: Not good.
HH: And so do you think …
DT: Not good for us. And what it shows is a total lack of respect, I mean, that the other countries would even be entertaining him, and they’re entertaining him big league, big league.
HH: So when you went before the Senate, and I always tell people my favorite testimony of all time is when Donald Trump just schooled the Senate on the construction of the U.N. remodel.
DT: Right.
HH: You know that stuff. You know every developer in Manhattan. You know everything about building buildings. You could build the wall. I have no doubt about that.
DT: Right. By the way, and nobody knows how easy that would be. And I mean, it would be, it would be tall, it would be powerful, we would make it very good looking. It would be as good as a wall’s got to be, and people will not be climbing over that wall, believe me. Go ahead.
HH: You know, I’d buy that, because you’re a builder. But 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?
DT: 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. 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. I will find whoever it is that I’ll find, and we’ll, but they’re all changing, Hugh. You know, those are like history questions. Do you know this one, do you know that one. I will tell you, I thought you used the word Kurd before. I will tell you that I think the Kurds are the most under-utilized and are being totally mistreated by us. And nobody understands why. But 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. If, 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.
HH: That’s what I’m getting at, because the Islamist extremism is metastasizing. Nasrallah’s been there a long time, and al-Baghdadi’s running ISIS. And so I wonder if you’re going to throw yourself into the details of this during the campaign the way you did into the U.N. deal, because you knew that stuff cold.
DT: Well, you know, and unfortunately, I said I’d build it for $500 million. They were at $3 billion. And it ended up costing $6 billion, and I told them that would happen. And it was a disgrace. Frankly, that whole U.N. situation was a disgrace. They ended up spending $5-6 billion dollars to renovate a building that I would have done for $500 million, and I told them I would have done it, and it would have been better. Now as far as what you’re talking about now, I will know every detail, and I will have the right plan, not a plan like this where we’re probably going backwards based on everything that I’m hearing, but we’re probably going backwards, zero respect. We have, we are not a respected country, and certainly as it relates to ISIS and what’s going on, and Iran.
HH: Now I don’t believe in gotcha questions. And I’m not trying to quiz you on who the worst guy in the world is.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/radio-host-cited-lesser-hamas-member-in-trump-gotcha-exchange/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/radio-host-cited-lesser-hamas-member-in-trump-gotcha-exchange/
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