In what can only be described as an “Oh, Gary” moment, libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson did something rather unusual during an interview with NBC News’ Kasie Hunt on Wednesday.
Hunt asked Johnson if he believed he could “pull even” with Trump and Clinton if he could get on the debate stage. He replied:
“I do. And it wouldn’t have anything to do with my debate performance either. It would just be that people would recognize that there’s another choice, and that there would be an examination of me and Bill Weld as who we are and what we’ve done. Based on that.”
Johnson then stuck out his tongue, bit down on it, and continued talking:
“I think I could stand up there for the whole debate, and not say anything, and emerge as the leader.”
Mediaite attempted to translate, but butchered it badly. It’s understandable. However, we’re a bit more fluent in weird libertarian here.
It seems he was trying to prove a point that he could be as peculiar as he wanted, and still emerge the victor because the other two choices are just that bad.
It was recently announced that Johnson wouldn’t be on the stage for the first debate, missing the 15% polling threshold to compete.
In the five most recent general election polls in which Johnson is included, the candidate averages 8.6%, according to RealClearPolitics.