German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prior to a meeting in Berlin, Germany on April 14, 2011. | Getty In swipe at Trump, Clinton names Merkel as her favorite world leader

Hillary Clinton trolled two White House opponents with a single response, dinging Gary Johnson and Donald Trump by naming Angela Merkel as her favorite world leader.

The Democratic presidential nominee on Thursday joined the discussion about politicians’ favorite world leaders, a topic that went viral when Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, drew a blank when asked Wednesday to name a world leader he looks up to and respects.


“Oh, let me think. Look, I like a lot of the world leaders,” Clinton said, bursting into laughter initially when asked about her favorite world leader during a gaggle with reporters aboard her campaign plane in Chicago. “One of my favorites is Angela Merkel because I think she’s been an extraordinary, strong leader during difficult times in Europe, which has obvious implications for the rest of the world and, most particularly, our country.”

Clinton praised the German chancellor’s “leadership and steadiness on the Euro crisis,” while adding that “her bravery in the face of the refugee crisis is something that I am impressed by.”

Clinton said she and Merkel have known each other since the 1990s and spent a lot of time together. “And I hope I’ll have the opportunity to work with her in the future, but we could talk about lots of different leaders if you want to sometime,” she quipped as she walked away with a smile.

Her seemingly innocuous response could be interpreted as a two-pronged attack against Johnson and Trump, though.

When first asked the question, Johnson admitted that he was having another “Aleppo moment,” a reference to an embarrassing interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier this month in which he asked, “What is Aleppo?” in response to a question about the city that represents the center of Syria’s civil war and refugee crisis, prompting serious questions about his acumen to be commander in chief.

Trump has frequently attacked Merkel on the trail, panning her for Germany’s intake of refugees, and will likely use that line against Clinton in the final stages of the campaign.

“Hillary Clinton is running to be America’s Angela Merkel, and we’ve seen how much crime and how many problems that’s caused the German people,” Trump said in a speech he delivered last month in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Trump, however, also named Merkel one of his favorite leaders Thursday, despite his rhetoric on the campaign trail that would suggest otherwise.

“Well, I think Merkel is a really great world leader, but I was very disappointed that — when she — this move with the whole thing on immigration,” he told New England Cable News. “I think it's a big problem and really, you know, to look at what she's done in the last year and a half. I was always a Merkel person. I thought really fantastic. But I think she made a very tragic mistake a year and a half ago.”