Kasich 'Actively Thinking' of Challenging Trump in 2020
Outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whose 2016 campaign for president failed to capture much interest outside of his home state, is thinking about another bid for the White House, Kasich said Sunday.
Kasich, a long-time critic of President Donald Trump, appeared on “Fox News Sunday.” Host Chris Wallace asked about speculation that Kasich would challenge Trump for the GOP nomination.
“All options are on the table,” Kasich said. “And we look every day — I have a team of people who look every day at the factors that go into a consideration like that. And I — you know, we access it and at some point, I will make a decision and I’ll give folks full disclosure about how I arrived at a decision and what it is.”
Kasich said any announcement is at least weeks away.
“I want to finish my job as governor. I only have a few weeks left. And — and then we’ll see what develops, you know, in terms of the politics and our nation,” Kasich said.
When Wallace tried to corner Kasich later in the interview, Kasich repeated that all options were being considered.
“I’m not trying to be coy. We are seriously looking at it. My folks talk and meet every week about it, the people that are involved with me politically. And, you know, at the end, I’ll make a decision,” he said.
In a separate interview with WCMH, Kasich said beating Trump in a GOP primary would be an uphill battle.
“I don’t get into things where I don’t think I can win, and right now, right now, today, inside the Republican Party, I can’t beat him in a primary,” Kasich said, raising the specter of a third-party candidacy. “But we’ll see. That’s today.”
During his “Fox News Sunday” interview, Kasich said what he called the “dysfunction” in Washington was “very disturbing.”
“The implications of what all this means long-term for our foreign policy, for our domestic agendas, is really up in the air. It concerns me a great deal,” he said.
Wallace said that given Trump promised a border wall and promised to limit U.S. participation in wars, “Isn’t he doing what he told the American people he would do?”
Kasich said a deal could have been done to trade wall funding for allowing children of illegal immigrants covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program to remain in the U.S. permanently. As reported by NPR, Trump has discussed multiple deals linking the wall and DACA.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t make a deal,” Kasich said. “In other words, give me a couple billion for the wall, which was more than, you know, than they had previously been agreed to, and in exchange for that we allow the DACA people to stay and the people who didn’t come here any other way but on their own to be able to stay in America and not be given the threat of being deported. That’s a deal that maybe they could get, that he would get. And I don’t know why he hasn’t done that. That makes an awful lot of sense to me.”
Kasich said the furor over Trump’s recently announced withdrawal from Syria is more about the style than the substance of the policy.
“In terms of Syria and troops, I think what everybody is objecting to is the precipitous nature, not informing your allies, not talking to the people who critically we need in this world,” he said. “But let’s also face in Syria the fact that that whole operation has been a mistake for many years. The Obama administration ignoring the redline was a disaster. We’ve lost influence in Syria, but the precipitous nature of that withdrawal, without finally defeating ISIS or making sure they can’t reformulate, is a terrible mistake.”
Kasich said Trump is wrong to put the U.S. ahead of its allies.
“I have been saying this now for almost two years, you can’t ignore your allies. You can’t just do things on your own, ‘America first.’ I’ve been saying for two years that it doesn’t make any sense to just engage in trade wars, particularly with our friends,” he said.
Kasich said criticism of Trump proves the governor has been right all along.
“I mean, a lot of the things you’re beginning to hear from other Republicans now are things that I’ve been saying for almost two years,” he said.
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