Donald Trump, leading in the polls and riding a wave of momentum in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, just hit a speed bump named Hugh Hewitt. 
 
 The conservative radio host peppered Trump with a host of foreign policy questions in a Thursday interview that produced some uncomfortable moments for the real estate mogul, who appeared upset at the line of questioning. 
 
 At one point, Hewitt asked Trump if he was familiar with "General Soleimani" and the "Quds Forces." (He referred to Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.) Trump said he was but then appeared to mistake the Quds for the Kurds, a Middle Eastern ethnic group. 
 
 "The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by us," said Trump. 
 
 Hewitt corrected him: "No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces." 
 
 A portion of the video was posted on YouTube: 
 
 After that, Trump said he thought Hewitt said "Kurds." 
 
 "No, Quds," responded Hewitt. 
 
 Later on, Hewitt insisted he didn't believe "in gotcha questions." Trump disagreed. 
 
 "Well, that is a gotcha question, though," he said. "I mean, you know, when you’re asking me about who’s running this, this this, that’s not, that is not, I will be so good at the military, your head will spin." 
 
 Asked what he would do as president if China were "to either accidentally or intentionally sink a Filipino or Japanese ship," Trump refused to say. 
 
 "I wouldn’t want to tell you, because frankly, they have to, you know, somebody wrote a very good story about me recently, and they said there’s a certain unpredictable, and it was actually another businessman, said there’s a certain unpredictability about Trump that’s great, and it’s what made him a lot of money and a lot of success," said Trump. "You don’t want to put, and you don’t want to let people know what you’re going to do with respect to certain things that happen." 
 
 Hewitt told Trump that when it comes to terrorism, "I’m looking for the next commander in chief, to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?" 
 
 Trump said he did not. 
 
 "No, you know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed," he said. "They’ll be all gone. I knew you were going to ask me things like this, and there’s no reason, because number one, I’ll find, I will hopefully find General Douglas MacArthur in the pack. I will find whoever it is that I’ll find, and we’ll, but they’re all changing, Hugh." 
 
 For the record, Hasan Nasrallah is the secretary general of Hezbollah; Ayman al-Zawahiri is the new leader of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden; Abu Mohammad al-Julani is the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, or al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate fighting in Syria; and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the leader of the Islamic State, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq. 
 
 Ordinarily, an interview like this would put a candidate at serious risk of falling in the polls. But nothing about Trump's candidacy has been ordinary, so it remains to be seen whether it will hurt him or not. 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the media don't always have the best relationship. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post) 
 
 In the same episode, Hewitt interviewed the GOP race's other business leader-turned-candidate, Carly Fiorina. He asked her the same questions -- informing her that "there's been social media" coverage of how Trump did. 
 
 "Aren’t you familiar with General Soleimani?" Hewitt asked. 
 
 "Yes," said Fiorina, who also recognized the name of the Quds Force. "We know that the general of the Quds Force has been a powerful tool of the Iranian regime to sow conflict. We also know that the Quds Forces are responsible for the deaths and woundings of American soldiers. We also that the Quds Forces have been in Syria and a whole bunch of other countries in the Middle East." 
 
 Fiorina was more hesitant when Hewitt mentioned Nasrallah, Zawahiri and Julani, as well as Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 
 
 "Do you know most of these without a scorecard, Carly Fiorina?" Hewitt asked. 
 
 "I have to be very honest with you," said Fiorina, "and say that sometimes I can get confused a bit between the name and group because they sound a bit alike sometimes, so I have to pause and think sometimes. But, I certainly know all those names both of the individual leaders and of the terrorist groups." 
 
 The former Hewlett-Packard CEO was on firmer ground when Hewitt asked her to differentiate between Hamas and Hezbollah. "Hamas is focused in Palestinian territories," she said. "Hezbollah focuses in Beirut and other places, but the truth is, both of them are proxies of Iran." 
 
 Trump hasn't seen the last of Hewitt. He is slated to ask questions at the second Republican debate later this month. 
 
 "At the debate, I may bring up Nasrallah being with Hezbollah, and al-Julani being with al-Nusra, and al-Masri being with Hamas. Do you think if I ask people to talk about those three things, and the differences, that that’s a gotcha question?" asked Hewitt. 
 
 "Yes, I do. I totally do. I think it’s ridiculous," Trump responded. ||||| Photo 
 
 Donald J. Trump revealed gaps in his mastery of international affairs during a radio interview on Thursday, appearing to mistake the Quds Force, an Iranian military group, for the Kurds, a Middle Eastern people, and growing testy over questions about foreign leaders. 
 
 “You’re asking me names that — I think it’s somewhat ridiculous,” Mr. Trump told Hugh Hewitt, a popular conservative radio show host. “As far as the individual players, of course I don’t know them. I’ve never met them. I haven’t been, you know, in a position to meet them.” 
 
 At one point, according to the interview’s transcript, Mr. Hewitt asked Mr. Trump if he was familiar with Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the shadowy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force. 
 
 “Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me,” Mr. Trump replied. 
 
 “He runs the Quds Forces,” Mr. Hewitt said. 
 
 “Yes, O.K., right,” Mr. Trump said. 
 
 But Mr. Trump seemed to think Mr. Hewitt was referring to the Kurds, a group with its own language and culture. 
 
 Mr. Trump asserted that “the Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated.” 
 
 Mr. Hewitt interrupted. “No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.” 
 
 Mr. Trump tried to recover from the live, on-air tutorial. “Yes, yes,” he said. 
 
 He added, “Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.” 
 
 Mr. Trump, a real estate developer and brand manager who has never worked in government, has relatively little experience dealing with foreign governments. But he has boasted of his global reach and international experience as a businessman. 
 
 Mr. Hewitt said he was not interested in “gotcha” questions but wanted to be sure Mr. Trump had a baseline of knowledge about foreign leaders. 
 
 “On the front of Islamist terrorism, I’m looking for the next commander in chief to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?” Mr. Hewitt asked. 
 
 Mr. Trump’s answer was strikingly dismissive. “No, you know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone.” 
 
 Making matters worse, Mr. Hewitt asked similar questions on Thursday to Carly Fiorina, a fellow Republican presidential candidate who, like Mr. Trump, has never served in elected office. 
 
 But Mrs. Fiorina sounded confident, patient and informed as she discussed the Quds Force, among other subjects. 
 
 Asked if she knew the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah, she explained that “Hamas is focused in Palestinian territories. Hezbollah focuses in Beirut and other places, but the truth is, both of them are proxies of Iran. Both of them threaten Israel.” 
 
 Mr. Hewitt signaled his approval. “That’s exactly right,” he said. 
 
 On Friday morning, Mr. Trump went on the attack, calling Mr. Hewitt a “third-rate radio announcer” during an interview on MSNBC. 
 
 Mr. Hewitt, who will help moderate the next Republican presidential debate on Sept. 16, said the insult would not influence his approach to that event. 
 
 “His critique won’t change my debate questions or prep,” Hewitt told The Huffington Post. 
 
 On the topic of international leaders, Mr. Trump concluded his interview with a touch of his trademark bravado, promising to become an authority on their names as president. 
 
 “If they’re still there, which is unlikely in many cases, but if they’re still there, I will know them better than I know you.” 
 
 He added, “I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.” ||||| So the second GOP debate is upon us, scheduled for 8 p.m. EST on CNN tonight. The moderators are Hugh Hewitt, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. You'll be reading a lot more about those names within 24 hours. 
 
 Sidebar 
 
 The first debate was an epic piece of comic theater. It featured at least a half dozen laugh-out-loud moments, including: the now-infamous Megyn Kelly-Donald Trump imbroglio, Mike Huckabee accusing Planned Parenthood of selling baby parts like "parts of a Buick," Ben Carson bragging that he was the only candidate to remove half a brain, Chris Christie and Rand Paul trading hilariously cringe-worthy "hug" jokes, Trump bragging that he bought Hillary Clinton with campaign contributions and many other choice exchanges. 
 
 It was salacious, pathetic, vapid, undignified, degrading, uninformative and compelling, making it a model for how Americans will consume politics going forward in the reality TV era. 
 
 This debate promises to be just as explosive. In fact, this affair is, quite frankly, a setup. All three moderators have tangled with Donald Trump before. In fact, the event seems like Jerry Springer-style tactics by CNN: putting people disposed to throw chairs at each other onstage, turning the cameras on and waiting for all hell to break loose. 
 
 Hewitt in particular is virtually guaranteed to get into a scrap with Trump. A former Nixon ghostwriter, Hewitt is one of the most vile people in America, a charmless, self-congratulating pedant whose fiendishly boring right-wing radio show might be called Not as Smart as I Think I Am. 
 
 Hewitt interviewed Trump earlier this month and fired a string of gotcha-style foreign policy questions at the Donald, daring him to name the leaders of Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and ISIS. Trump deflected as only he knows how, saying that he didn't know but that it didn't matter because by the time he made it to office, "they'll all be gone." Similar to the Kelly episode, he grew angry about the exchange overnight, and the next day told Joe Scarborough that Hewitt is a "third rate radio announcer." 
 
 Bash, meanwhile, did the interview with Trump where he blasted attorney Elizabeth Beck for being "disgusting" while breastfeeding. And Tapper went after Trump in his own interview for promoting "traditional" marriage when Trump himself has been married three times. 
 
 My guess is that the debate will play right into Trump's hands. Hewitt, who was a Harvard housemate of Grover Norquist and was tutored by Alan Keyes, will act as a stand-in for the Republican Party bigwigs: he'll try to bloody Trump by exposing his lack of concrete knowledge, in the area of foreign affairs particularly. Expect questions along the lines of, "Who is Hassan Nasrallah's favorite soccer player?" or "Name two countries in South America." 
 
 This will make for excellent theater, but what Trump's audiences will see is their candidate being pestered by one GOP puppet and two reporters from CNN, which in 'Murica is widely understood to be a wing of the Democratic Party. 
 
 Anyway, there will be 11 candidates at the grownup table tonight. It's newcomer Carly Fiorina along with the ten from the last debate: Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz , Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Rand Paul. 
 
 In the Friday the 13th movie that is this campaign, Rick Perry is the first to be found with an axe is his head. He dropped out this week, blaming his inability to get into the first debate and the unfortunate fact of his being under indictment (for coercing a public servant) as reasons for his failed campaign. One of Perry's megadonors is already asking for his $5 million back, to which Perry's camp says it's reviewing its options; fun stuff. All in all, a great showing by the former Texas governor, who will almost certainly run again in 2020, perhaps with a Japanese soldier who hasn't heard WWII is over as a running mate. 
 
 Not listed here is former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who will be watching the debate from the mythical religious territory of purgatory. Gilmore of course didn't make it to the grownup event, but CNN says you need 1 percent in the polls to make even the kiddie-table debate, making Gilmore a second-rater among second-raters: as Beavis and Butthead would say, the "ass of the ass." 
 
 Sidebar 
 
 Here are the official rules for the second GOP debate drinking game. After a lengthy discussion on Twitter, we're adding an almost entirely new lineup here, with a few holdovers. The event is taking place in California at the Ronald Reagan library, which means we can't have people drinking every time a candidate tries to fellate the Gipper's memory: we'd have Guyana-level mass deaths. We thought about making people drink a the sight of Ted Cruz's first Reagan-inspired boner, but the podium will make that rule tough to enforce. 
 
 Please take small shots! And when watching politics, please make sure to have a designated driver. 
 
 I'll be tweeting throughout the event. The rules: 
 
 Drink THE FIRST TIME and the FIRST TIME only: 
 
 1. A candidate invokes the memory of Saint Reagan. 
 
 2. A candidate mentions Hillary's emails. 
 
 Drink EVERY TIME: 
 
 3. Hugh Hewitt hurls a douchey gotcha question at Trump. 
 
 4. Trump – or any of the other candidates – insults or threatens one of the moderators. Beer chaser if it's Tapper or Bash, and the candidate rips liberal-ass CNN in the process. 
 
 5. Trump brags about his wealth or his poll numbers, or mocks the low poll numbers of an opponent. 
 
 6. A candidate pledges to stand with Israel. 
 
 7. Carly Fiorina makes a joke about her own face. 
 
 8. A candidate claims a positive relationship with a minority. We're keeping this rule in every debate. (So far we're one-for-one: Kasich said he had a gay friend in the first debate.) 
 
 9. Anyone mentions Kim Davis or the "War on Christians." 
 
 10. A candidate says he'll stand up to Putin. 
 
 11. Trump derides someone for being a "lightweight" or having "low energy" or "low enthusiasm." 
 
 12. Anyone mentions Tom Brady or Deflategate. 
 
 13. Anyone calls Black Lives Matter a "hate group," argues that BLM or Barack Obama have endangered the lives of police, or pulls a "What about black-on-black crime?" line. 
 
 14. A candidate mentions the founders. Double shot if it's Rand Paul. 
 
 15. Carson invokes the Bible as an authority for something that has nothing to do with the Bible, like tax policy. 
 
 16. A candidate says, "I'm the only person on this stage who…" Double shot if it's Carson saying something like, "I'm the only candidate who's had his hands inside a human thorax." 
 
 Anyone mentions Hitler, Nazis or Neville Chamberlain. Includes related imagery, e.g. "ovens." 
 
 18. A candidate stumbles over what to call ISIS/ISIL, or mispronounces the name of a world leader. 
 
 19. Anyone mentions the Governator or makes a Terminator-themed joke, e.g. "To illegal immigrants, I say, Hasta La Vista." 
 
 Drink EVERY TIME you hear: 
 
 20. "Anchor babies." 
 
 21. "Thug." 
 
 22. "Leading from behind." 
 
 23. "All lives matter." 
 
 24. "Apologize for America." 
 
 25. "Eye-ran." 
 
 Take a shot of JAGERMEISTER if: 
 
 26. Anyone compares Kim Davis to Rosa Parks. 
 
 27. Any candidate is seen wearing a Blue Lives Matter bracelet. 
 
 28. A candidate offers an insincere paean to departed Rick Perry. Double shot if someone references his "smart glasses."
– As Donald Trump pledged his loyalty to his own party inside Trump Tower yesterday, things got a little ugly outside. Police were called after Trump security guards scuffled with anti-Trump protesters on the sidewalk outside the New York City tower, NY1 reports. The guards took signs away from the protesters and one man was hit in the face after he grabbed the guard who had taken his "Trump: Make America Racist Again" banner, reports the New York Times. The Trump campaign says the guard was "jumped" and that it's considering pressing charges, reports the Times, which notes that the Trump staffer involved looks a lot like the one who removed Univision's Jorge Ramos from a Trump event last week. The protesters—some of whom dressed in KKK outfits to mock Trump's immigration policies—are also threatening to press charges, CNN reports. Trump, meanwhile, had what the Washington Post says would have been a damaging moment for an ordinary campaign when he appeared on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt's show last night. After Trump failed to recognize the names of the leaders of Hezbollah, ISIS, al-Qaeda, or the Nusra Front, he accused Hewitt of asking "gotcha questions" and said the names didn't matter because they'll "all be changed" by the time he's in the White House. Hewitt said he might bring the names up again when he asks questions at the next Republican debate, the Post notes. (Trump does not approve of Jeb Bush speaking Spanish.)