Well, we’ve heard the interview now. And John McCain either doesn’t know who the Prime Minister of Spain is, thinks Spain is a country in Latin America, or possibly both.

In case, you haven’t seen our updates from last night, yesterday John McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. And in the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American leftist leader from South America.

After the interviewer presses him a couple times on the point and tries to focus him on the fact that Prime Minister Zapatero isn’t from Mexico and isn’t a drug lord either McCain comes back at her saying, “All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.”

Then there’s a moment of awkward pause before she says. “But what about Europe? I’m talking about the President of Spain.”

McCain: “What about me, what?

Interviewer: “Are you willing to meet with him if you’re elected president?”

McCain: “I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not.”

At this point, the interviewer gets tongue-tied presumably because she can’t get over McCain not knowing what Spain is.

The original untranslated English version of John McCain’s interview with Radio Caracol Miami has now been released.

Have a listen (the key passage about Spain starts at 2:58 in):

At first it sounds like McCain is taking a hard neocon line against Prime Minister Zapatero, but as the interviewer continues to press the point, it becomes pretty obvious that McCain has no idea who she’s talking about.

His broad, generic answer is clearly meant to cover Latin American leaders generally, known and unknown — sort of a blanket “we’ll stand up to tinpot dictators” — even if they happen to be NATO prime ministers.

Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero on McCain not knowing who he is (from Time)…

As for Zapatero himself, the prime minister is apparently taking this latest attack to his ego with characteristic equilibrium. McCain may not know who Spain’s leader is, but Zapatero promised to work with the new administration “whatever it is.”

A final update of the evening on McCain’s uber-gaffe.

There’s some unclarity whether the interviewer was done by a Spanish reporter or a Spanish language reporter Caracol from 1260 in Miami. I suspect they may have had some joint arrangement since they both appear to claim it as their own exclusive. Or perhaps the local station in Miami is working as the affiliate of the Spanish radio network.

That doesn’t change the underlying story. But TPM Reader RC points out that if you go to the Caracol1260 website and scroll down below the fold to the section of audio links on the left under the headline “Hoy por Hoy”, these folks have their own version of the recording. They spliced the Spanish translations in differently. And in the way they did it, you can hear much more of McCain’s actual English. It’s still a bit difficult to hear McCain since the translator is speaking simultaneously. But you can hear most of what he says. It’s pretty clear that McCain doesn’t remember who Zapatero is. And he keeps referring to his approach to Latin America even after the interview keeps pointing that she’s asking him a question a Spain, which is actually in Europe.

(ed.note: Another point about this version of the interview audio, Caracol seems to have completely dubbed out the interviewers voice in exchange for a translator speaking in Spanish. If you listen to the other version from the Spanish radio channel, it’s clear that the original interview was entirely in English. The Caracol version also appears to cut portions of the the exchange. So we still need to hear the unaltered recording of the exchange.)

To recap, tonight we’ve been discussing Sen. McCain’s bizarre interview in which he appeared not to know who Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero was and, in an effort to wing it, assumed he must be another left-wing, anti-American leader from Latin America. In the Spanish press analysis of the interview, at least, many seem uncertain whether McCain even knows where Spain is, though that strikes me as a bit excessive.

Just how this will get played in the American press will be interesting to see because it cuts to two of McCain’s key vulnerabilities — the first being his apparently rather shaky foreign policy experience if can’t identify the leader of a major NATO ally and the second being what I guess we would call declining mental acuity.

Now, bear in mind that so far we’ve only been able to clearly hear the audio of the interview in the translations provided by the Spanish radio station that conducted the interview. But the interview, which was conducted entirely in English, was recorded. I’d assume that if this story gets any traction some media outlet here will prevail on the Spanish news organization to release the English language recording of the interview.

All of the Spanish language speakers I’ve heard from who’ve listened to the interview think there’s no doubt that McCain just got confused and didn’t know who Zapatero was or possibly didn’t even know where Spain was. But again, in the released audio, you just hear the translator, with the original English sufficiently far in the background as to be largely inaudible. So we probably won’t know just what happened until we hear the original.

Well, it doesn’t appear to have registered in the American press yet. But the story keeps bubbling in the Spanish press about McCain’s bizarre gaffe about the Spanish Prime Minister. Here’s the front page cut out from the Spanish news channel that did the interview. They’ve talked to the interviewer now. Her take? McCain didn’t know who Zapatero was …

Late Update: So McCain is the candidate with the foreign policy experience ready to lead on day one. But he doesn’t know who the leader of Spain is. He gets confused in an interview, apparently thinking Zapatero is someone from Latin America who is an enemy of the United States and manages to create a minor international incident.

Later Update: Here’s another Spanish press reax. In Spain, there seem to be two lines of thinking. The great majority appear to think the McCain was simply confused and didn’t know who Zapatero was — something you might bone up on if you were about to do an interview with the Spanish press. The assumption seems to be that since he’d already been asked about Castro and Chavez that McCain assumed Zapatero must be some other Latin American bad guy. A small minority though think that McCain is simply committed to an anti-Spanish foreign policy since he’s still angry about Spain pulling it’s troops out of Iraq. Finally, a few of those who lean toward the first view speculate that McCain may have confused Zapatero with the Zapatista rebel group in Mexico.

Even Later Update: One representative reader response, from among many …

I listened to the interview. The characterization is correct. I originally gave McCain the benefit of the doubt, thinking that he was just snubbing Zapatero (something that would be welcomed by the Spanish right). When I was there, there was a lot of agitation among Spanish conservatives because Zapatero was ignoring the country’s relations with the U.S. and making overtures to more leftist countries in the Latin America–Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia (all the countries mentioned in this interview before Spain). There was even a controversy because Zapatero sat down when the U.S. flag was passing by in a parade. I believe his excuse was “his legs were tired.” So I figured McCain was giving the Zapatero the cold shoulder in the same manner as the Bush administration has done.

After listening to the interview, however, I agree with the characterization that McCain was unaware of our relations with Spain, or even the country’s geographical and political position. When asked about meeting with Zapatero and the country’s relationship with the U.S., McCain ignored the question and went into some boilerplate about America’s friends and enemies and analyzing relations (think Palin and the Bush Doctrine). Then, he tried to transition his answer into more friendly territory, discussing President Calderon’s government in Mexico. He never really addressed Spain, but pushed right into commenting about Mexico. The interviewer actually tried to redirect him several times (again, think Charlie Gibson and Palin), until she actually stated that she wasn’t talking about Latin America anymore, but rather Europe. For whatever reason, McCain responded to this question by repeating what he said before about analyzing America’s relationships with our friends and enemies.

Seriously, this was pretty bad.

We wanted to give you an update on the post below where we described Sen. McCain’s latest gaffe in which he seemed to suggest that he might not be willing to meet with Spanish Prime Minster Zapatero because he is among those world leaders who want to harm America.

The story is already getting picked up pretty quickly in the Spanish press. And the way it’s being interpreted in the Spanish press is that McCain got confused about the fact that Spain is a country in Europe, rather than a rogue state in Latin America.

Our review of the audio suggests the same conclusion. In the interview, McCain is asked about Hugo Chavez, the situation in Bolivia and then about Raul Castro. He responds to each of these with expected answers about standing up to America’s enemies, etc. Then the interviewer switches gears and asks about Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. And McCain replies — very loose translation — that he’ll establish close relations with our friends and stand up to those who want to do us harm. The interviewer has a double take and seems to think McCain might be confused. So she asks it again. But McCain sticks to the same evasive answer.

This is obviously a story that’s difficult to get a handle on because of multiple layers of translation and retranslation. So I would ask that those of you who are speak Spanish fluently to review this article in El Pais and the audio in the post below, and let us know any other information you find.

Did John McCain really just suggest that the Prime Minister of Spain might be one of America’s enemies? One of those international leaders he’d refuse to meet with?

Does he want to liberate Spain too?

The passage in question is at the end of the interview linked here (with translation into Spanish) …

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) gets taken to the woodshed by Chris Matthews: