Story highlights Gary Johnson once again replied to a foreign policy question with awkward, dead air

His running mate said it was the format, not his lack of prowess

Washington (CNN) Libertarian vice presidential hopeful Bill Weld spent part of Thursday cleaning up comments his running mate, Gary Johnson, made the previous night when he struggled to name a single foreign leader he respected.

Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, told CNN's Randi Kaye that Johnson was a "deep person," but that the format of the MSNBC town hall where the embarrassing moment occurred had not played to Johnson's strengths.

"He's a deep person in terms of his thinking and he thinks through things in a way that many other people don't," Weld said. "Pop quizzes on television are obviously not his forte but depth of analysis and surprising lines of analysis are his forte."

The moment came when MSNBC host Chris Matthews transitioned to what he called a "lightning round" and asked Johnson to name his favorite foreign leader. Johnson sighed and admitted after a moment that he was having another "Aleppo moment," in reference to his previous gaffe several weeks earlier when he was unable to recognize a city at the heart of the Syrian civil war.

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