Gary Johnson might want to study up about Earth before worrying about other planets.
The Libertarian Party presidential nominee — who earlier this month infamously failed to recognize the Syrian city of Aleppo during a nationally televised interview — said Sunday that the human race will ultimately be forced to live on other planets.
“I mean, the plate tectonics at one point, Africa and South America separated and I am talking now about the Earth and the fact that we have existed for billions of years and will going forward,” the gaffe-prone former New Mexico governor said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We do have to inhabit other planets. I mean, the future of the human race … is space exploration. So, no, we should be prudent with the environment. We care about the environment,” he said.
Johnson had been responding to questions about comments he’d made in 2011 about long-term effects of climate change.
His remarks, nonetheless, represent the third time in as many weeks that the Libertarian Party nominee has made a bizarre and eye-popping statement.
Earlier this month, Johnson drew an unsettling blank when asked during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” how he would handle the humanitarian crisis in the Syrian city of Aleppo, one of the worst-hit in the nation’s devastating civil war.
“What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?” commentator Mike Barnicle asked.
“And what is Aleppo?” a confused Johnson replied.
“You’re kidding,” Barnicle said. “Aleppo is in Syria, it’s the epicenter of the refugee crisis.”
“Okay. Got it. Got it,” Johnson said, before detailing his concerns for Syria.
Thousands of Syrians have fled Aleppo amid the ghastly war between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, rebel groups, the Syrian Democratic Forces militia and extremist originations. More than 470,000 people have died across Syria since the war began in 2011. About 25,000 of those casualties have been in Aleppo.
A few weeks later, Johnson misspoke when he said he was glad that “nobody got hurt” in the Chelsea explosion and Minnesota stabbing attacks that left dozens of people injured.
In fact, the bombing in Chelsea injured 29 people and the stabbing in a Minnesota mall — which ISIS later claimed — injured eight people, and ended with police killing the attacker.
“Well, first of all, just grateful that nobody got hurt,” Johnson said last week on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
Johnson’s campaign later released a statement offering his “thoughts” to those who were injured.
