Miami mayor and longshot Republican presidential candidate Francis Suarez suffered an embarrassing foreign policy blunder Tuesday morning when he asked a conservative radio host, "What's a Uyghur?" before conflating the persecuted religious minority with a 1971 line of children's toys.
Suarez's comments came during a Hugh Hewitt Show appearance, during which Hewitt asked Suarez if he would "be talking about the Uyghurs" during his campaign, a reference to the more than one million Muslims held in Chinese concentration camps. "The what? What's a Uyghur?" Suarez responded. When Hewitt told the Miami mayor he should "get smart" on the issue, Suarez promised he'd "look at—what was it? What'd you call it? A Weeble?"
Hewitt, of course, was not referring to the line of roly-poly children's toys known as Weebles, which Hasbro subsidiary Playskool produced in various egg-shaped sizes from 1971-2011. "The Uyghurs, you really need to know about the Uyghurs," Hewitt clarified. "You gotta talk about it every day." Suarez insisted he would do so, touting his status as a "fast learner."
'I'll look at — what’d you call it, a ‘Weeble?’"
— 2024 GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez on Uyghurs pic.twitter.com/wAW8lGg0IK
— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2023
Suarez’s Tuesday faux-pas harks back to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s so-called Aleppo moment. During a 2016 MSNBC interview, Johnson was questioned about what he would do if elected regarding the embattled Syrian city that was at the center of a civil war between the government and several rebel factions. "What is Aleppo?" Johnson asked.
Suarez blamed the gaffe on a listening comprehension issue, telling the Washington Free Beacon he is "well aware of the suffering of the Uyghurs in China" but "didn't recognize the pronunciation my friend Hugh Hewitt used."
"That's on me," the Republican said in a statement. Hewitt, however, criticized Suarez over the exchange following the interview, calling it a "huge blind spot."
"‘What's a Uyghur?’ is not where I expect people running for president to say when asked about the ongoing genocide in China," the radio host tweeted.
Suarez, who is considered to be a centrist, has long sparred with his state's governor, fellow GOP presidential hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla.). Suarez in 2021 lamented that DeSantis would not let him enact a "commonsense" mask mandate in Miami and months later said he would not direct his police department to enforce a state law that made it a felony to willingly transport an illegal immigrant. "We don't usually get involved in the federal immigration system," Suarez noted. Suarez has also attacked DeSantis on education, calling the governor's bill to limit sex education in kindergarten through third grade "excessive."
In 2018, meanwhile, Suarez publicly touted his vote for DeSantis's gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Andrew Gillum. After losing to DeSantis, Gillum was found vomiting in a Florida hotel room, alongside a gay escort and self-described "pornstar performer" who overdosed on methamphetamines. Gillum, who has been married to his wife since 2009, denied ever using drugs that night and came out as bisexual months after the ordeal.