THE HIGHEST PROFILE ‘third party’ candidate in the race for the White House has committed an embarrassing gaffe in an appearance on a major network.

Gary Johnson, who’s heading up the Libertarian ticket in the US general election, stunned the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe by asking “What is Aleppo?” in response to a question about the Syrian city.

“You’re kidding me,” presenter Mike Barnicle responded – before proceeding to explain that Aleppo “is in Syria, it’s the epicentre of the refugee crisis”.

“Okay, got it, got it,” Johnson cut him off, before adding:

With regard to Syria I do think it’s a mess. I think that the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that at an end.

Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, was announced in May as the Libertarian nominee for president. He was also the party’s candidate in 2012.

A recent average of polls has put him at around 9% in a match-up against Trump and Clinton, and he’s been lobbying hard to be included in the three televised presidential debates – picking up backing this week from former GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

The central goal of the Libertarians was summed up by one delegate at their nominating convention this year as “minimum government, maximum freedom”.

The first line in the foreign policy section of his official website states: “The objective of both our foreign policy and our military should be straightforward: To protect us from harm and to allow us to exercise our freedoms.”

It also includes the line that “we have enough problems to solve right here at home”.

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