Shortly after Donald Trump accused conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt of asking him unfair questions about foreign affairs, Carly Fiorina fielded the same questions with little trouble.
When Hewitt on Thursday asked Trump whether he was familiar with General Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, as well as other prominent military figures in the Middle East, the businessman cried foul.
“Well that is a ‘gotcha’ question, though, you know, when you’re asking me whose running this, this, this,” Trump said during the show.
{mosads}Later Thursday, Hewitt asked the same questions of Fiorina in an attempt to see whether the queries were unfair.
Asked whether she was familiar with Soleimani, Fiorina answered “yes.” Asked whether the Quds Force’s behavior would be affected by President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, she responded:
“Of course. There’s no doubt. There’s no doubt. Look, we know that the general of the Quds Force has been a powerful tool of the Iranian regime to sow conflict. We also know that the Quds Forces are responsible for the deaths and woundings of American soldiers. We also that the Quds Forces have been in Syria and a whole bunch of other countries in the Middle East.”
Hewitt followed up by asking Fiorina how well she knows other prominent Middle East figures, and the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO was confident she understood the key players for the most part, though she acknowledged that “sometimes I can get confused a bit between the name and group because they sound a bit alike sometimes.”
Afterward, Hewitt explained that Trump rejected those questions earlier in the day as “gotcha” questions and asked Fiorina whether she felt they were fair.
“I don’t think they’re ‘gotcha’ questions at all,” she replied.
“The questions you’re asking are at the heart of the threat that we face, that our ally, Israel, faces, that the world faces,” Fiorina added.
“It is critically important that we have a leader in the White House who understands the world and who’s in it and how it works.”
In his interview earlier, Trump insisted that by the time he takes office, the major figures in the military landscape will have changed, making it irrelevant what he knows or doesn’t know as of now.
“I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone,” he said. “Those are like [a] history question — do you know this one, do you know that one?”
Trump is the Republican presidential front-runner, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average, while Fiorina is in seventh place.
Hewitt will co-moderate the second GOP primary debate with “The Lead” host Jake Tapper on CNN on Sept. 16.