Ohio Governor John Kasich will be in Cleveland next month for the Republican National Convention, what he’ll be doing exactly isn’t yet clear.
“I don't even know what I'm going to be doing at the convention,” Kasich told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in an interview that aired Tuesday. “I know I’m going to have some of my own events outside as to what I'm going to do there? I'm not quite sure."
That stems in large part from his failure to endorse the nominee Donald Trump despite signing a pledge with his other Republican hopefuls to do just that. "Look I'm sorry that this happened,” Kasich said. “We'll see where this ends up I'm not making any final decision yet but at this point I just can't do it."
What he said he also won’t do is take part in any effort that may emerge to deny Trump the nomination through rule changes the week before the convention.
“I won't be involved in it, I mean I'm not out here to disrupt.”
Kasich and Scarborough discussed what led to the rise of Trump.
"I'll tell you one way the media gave him $2 billion worth of free press, I mean I could be having a press conference and they'd have an empty podium with Trump speaking there. Look you guys have a lot of responsibility for this you know it too, you all know it,” Kasich told Scarborough.
Another factor Kasich said was the negative message. “Hope doesn’t sell as much as negative, negative initially sells,” he said. It was something that fueled both Trump’s candidacy and that of Bernie Sanders.
“It’s the same deal, it’s about ‘you don’t have because somebody else took.’ You don’t have good wages because the Mexicans came in, you didn’t have this because of the Chinese,” he said pointing to Trump arguments and “you don’t have this because of the rich people on Wall Street,” pointing to Sanders’.
“It’s the same message but from two different ends of the spectrum.”
Scarborough pointed out that President’s Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan first lost in their bids for president before winning.
"I don't know what I'm going to do in the future,” Kasich said. “You know I'm going to go to a funeral for George Voinovich the great governor, senator from Ohio and George always said take care of the job you're in and that will allow you to get the job that you might want. I don't know what my future's going to bring but I'm going to be the best darned governor in America."
