Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain has taken a lot of dings lately about his lack of foreign policy understanding. However, slips he made just before and just after Tuesday night’s GOP debate may turn out to be narrative-defining for his recently surging campaign.
The mess started on CNN’s Situation Room, when host Wolf Blitzer asked him about Israel’s recent deal to exchange one lone soldier – Gilad Shalit – for many Palestinian prisoners. Blitzer quickly moved to ask whether Cain would act similarly to Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and free the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay for a single American soldier.
Cain replied:
“I could see myself authorizing that kind of transfer but what I would do is I would make sure that I got all of the information. I got all of the input, considered all of the options. And then, the president has to be the president and make a judgement call. I can make that call if I had to.”
By the time the debate began, this had already become a talking point for candidates seeking to knock him down. Michele Bachmann slammed it as “naive” and tantamount to negotiating with terrorists.
But the worst was yet to come. After the debate, Cain spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and the result was excruciating.
Watch below:
One key line: “If I said that I spoke in error. Maybe I didn’t understand the question.”
And another: “I misspoke. Because I didn’t, you know, moving so fast, I misspoke. I would not do that I simply would not do that.”
