He first ran into choppy waters when Hugh asked him a variation of the question he asks every presidential candidate, including in a 2016 now-famous interview with then-candidate Donald Trump, about the nuclear triad. The former President still bristles at Hugh over the question years later.

For the Suarez interview, Hugh wanted to know how Mayor Suarez would prioritize which leg or legs of the triad would get the most of scarce modernization funding in the federal budget, and which leg would get short shrift. After demonstrating at least a rudimentary understanding of what the triad was – land, sea, and air offensive delivery of nuclear warheads, he drifted off into a word salad consisting of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines, as though the propulsion systems of the ships is part of the triad. It’s not.

FS: Yeah, you know, obviously that’s the ability to deploy nuclear weapons from sea, air, land. They’re, when you think about technology and how we’re deploying our assets and our strategies, there’s a tremendous amount of disruption right now from drones to AI and how we strategize and make decisions. Obviously, having ballistic submarines is incredibly important, because they’re also nuclear-powered, as are our aircraft carriers. And so they can go on and on and on. China’s, I think, building a nuclear carrier, you know, aircraft carrier at an alarming rate, and trying to overtake us in terms of their navy, so that is a massive concern.

And I think one of the things that’s distinguished us as a country, and you know, obviously one of the falls for the Soviet Union was SDI, you know, our ability to have a strategic defense initiative and system, they called it Star Wars, right, the ability to shoot out nuclear weapons in the sky. So I think, you know, it’s not just about our offensive capabilities. I think it has to be, it has to do with our defensive capabilities. I would like to have a fourth here instead of a triad. We should have the ability to launch from space. I mean, there’s a massive amount of investment in space. I think you have a thousand companies that are investing in space. It’s become a private, a theater for private investment. Back when I was younger, space was dominated by the governments. Now, it’s dominated by the private sector.

And I think we have to look at the ability to deploy from space, and to also have defensive capabilities with lasers and a variety of other technologies that’ll give us, you know, there’s obviously a lot of encouraging science that we see with Israel’s missile defense system, with Ukraine’s use of the Patriots, Saudi’s use of the Patriots against Yemen and Iran through Hezbollah. I mean, there’s a lot of good there, but I think we have to continue to invest and be the technological winner of our defense systems and our offensive capabilities.

That’s a little more Billy Madison-esque in his answer than I’m comfortable with in a potential commander-in-chief.

The Titanic hitting the iceberg moment came when Hugh asked about whether the Uyghurs would be talked about by Suarez on a routine basis in his campaign. Here’s what followed.

Hugh Hewitt: “Will you be talking about the Uyghurs in your campaign?”

2024 GOP presidential candidate Francis Suarez: “What's a Uyghur?” pic.twitter.com/AlRkjZCJyK

— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2023

HH: Penultimate question, Mayor. Will you be talking about the Uyghurs in your campaign?

FS: The what?

HH: The Uyghurs.

FS: What’s a Uyghur?

HH: Okay, we’ll come back to that. Let me, you won’t be, you’ve got to get smart on that.

Jim Geraghty over at National Review noted in his write-up of this interview that this was not an ambush question, because Hugh had already turned the topic to China the question preceding this one.

BTW, Hugh's question right before "Will you be talking about the Uyghurs in your campaign?" was "What did you make of Secretary Blinken’s trip to China last week?" In other words, they were already talking about China.https://t.co/AtcjcMTIAJ

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) June 27, 2023

The instant reaction to Mayor Suarez from a lot of people online was that this was this cycle’s Gary Johnson moment, reacting to our involvement in Syria, with the candidacy-ending phrase, “What’s Aleppo?”

To be fair to former Governor Johnson, his answer wasn’t as bad as Suarez’, because he at least didn’t come back in the same interview and punctuate his ignorance on the subject by laughing and mocking that which he clearly had no knowledge.

“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

FS: And you gave me homework, Hugh. I’ll look at what a, what was it, what did you call it, a Weeble? (laughing)

HH: The Uyghurs. You really need to know about the Uyghurs, Mayor. You’ve got to talk about it every day, okay?

FS: I will talk about, I will search Uyghurs. I’m a good learner. I’m a fast learner.

That’s bad any way you slice it. He laughed at the Weebles. Weebles wobble, but in Xinjiang Province, they actually do fall down…dead.

90 minutes after this interview took place, former State Department Press Secretary Morgan Ortagus, who helped champion the cause and plight of the Uyghurs while working for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was on the Hugh Hewitt Show. She had already heard about Mayor Suarez’ comments and mentioned that she had already been in contact with his campaign and offered a briefing to them on the Uyghurs.

So when the Mayor took to Twitter three hours later along with a statement from the campaign saying,

Of course, I am well aware of the suffering of the Uyghurs in China. They are being enslaved because of their faith. China has a deplorable record on human rights and all people of faith suffer there.
 
I didn’t recognize the pronunciation my friend Hugh Hewitt used. That’s on…

— Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) June 27, 2023

That’s utter nonsense. Everyone in media, left, center, and right, pronounces Uyghurs exactly the way Hugh did. There was no misunderstanding. Lord knows Hugh has often butchered names in the past. It’s one of the lovable things about him that keeps him relatively humble. But he doesn’t miss on the Uyghurs. It’s too important an issue to get wrong. He didn’t during the interview with Mayor Suarez, and attempting to lay off the controversy on mispronunciation by the host just compounded the error.

Vivek Ramaswamy appeared for his first time with Hugh a few months ago, and didn’t know what the Triad was. But he admitted he didn’t know, and promised he would learn about it and be ready next time. He owned up to it. He showed a little humility. That’s respectable. Suarez very obviously didn’t know the first thing about the Uyghurs, and it had nothing to do with pronunciation, because it was the same one used all across media, as you’ll see in just a little bit.

Mayor Suarez began his interview by talking about the why – why he wants to be president. He’s the son of two Cuban refugees to America. He was born in Miami and has lived the American dream. All of this is an exceptional life story. He also doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about Communism, especially as it has been practiced 90 miles from the southern tip of Florida for decades. Yet when the biggest single practitioner of Communism in the world, the CCP, is not just engaging in genocide, but setting up a base in Havana which will house PLA troops as well as the technology to conduct espionage on us, you’d think he’d have a good working list of reasons why he doesn’t like China. What they’re doing to the Uyghurs should rank in the top five. Not knowing who they are is simply disqualifying for someone seeking the Oval Office.

The silver lining to all of this? We had more talk about the Uyghurs across all of media in one day than we’ve had nationwide in a month combined.

I hope Francis Suarez is sincere about getting smart on this issue and incorporating it into his stump speech when the topic turns to what to do about the threat China poses. I also hope he learns from this episode with Hugh that it’s okay to admit when you don’t know something. It’s actually endearing to voters when you show a little humility…so long as you back it up with learning and improvement.