John Kasich signaled Monday that he still
harbors deep uneasiness with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee,
declining to endorse him and reiterating that he will not serve as
Trump’s vice president.
Even now that he’s left the race, Kasich
is resisting calls to serve as Trump’s No. 2, portraying his pitch and
Trump’s as fundamentally incompatible. Kasich said he was “not inclined”
to run with Trump and that he had “not changed my mind.”
“Those are two very inconsistent
messages, so it would be very hard for me — unless he were to change all
of his views and become a uniter — for me to get in the middle of this
thing,” the Ohio governor told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an exclusive
interview, his first since leaving the race. “Because, you know, I’m
undecided here about what I’m gonna do in this race.”
Kasich maintained that he has not yet
decided whether he can support Trump’s message, and further warned that
Trump is set to lose in November should he not adopt a more welcoming
political posture. Yet he still said Monday that he would not mount a
third party bid for the White House, putting an end to budding hopes
that the former Republican presidential candidate would reenter the
race.
“I’m not gonna do that,” Kasich said. “I
gave it my best where I am. I just think running third party doesn’t
feel right. I think it’s not constructive.”
“A third party candidacy would be viewed
as kind of a silly thing,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s
appropriate. I just don’t think it would be the right thing to do.”
Trump’s Indiana GOP primary victory on
May 3 prompted both Kasich and fellow GOP primary contender, Ted Cruz,
to drop out, making him the presumptive nominee. Yet Kasich is still
smarting over the way he believes forces — ranging from top Republican
donors to the Republican National Committee — treated him, believing
they did not give him a fair shake.
RNC chairman Reince Priebus declared
Trump the presumptive nominee on the night of Trump’s Indiana win — even
though Kasich had said he was not yet leaving the race.
“The chairman of the Republican Party
endorsed Trump, which I thought was completely inappropriate,” Kasich
said. “He just wanted to get thing over. I’m not happy about it.”
Kasich also attributed his struggles to
his inability to win over many of the party’s leading donors and
fundraisers, who largely flocked to other candidates despite his ties to
the business community.
“My big problem was I never got the big
money. The big money stayed on the sidelines,” he said. “I never had the
people walk in and give money to the super PAC.”
But Kasich, like Cruz, is in no rush now
to back the man who beat them. The Ohio governor told Cooper that he is
still “undecided” about backing Trump, and signaled he would be
watching the New Yorker closely and observing his rhetoric.
Kasich, who was far more tolerant of
Trump on the campaign trail than were his other GOP rivals, wondered
what his daughters would say should he now support him.
“If I were to turn around today and
endorse him, they’d be like, ‘Why, Dad?’ And that matters to me,” Kasich
said. “We’ll see what he does. He has a chance to move to the positive
side and unify this country.”
Kasich predicted that should Trump not
change his message to one of unity, presumptive GOP nominee would have a
“big problem” in the Buckeye State.
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