White supremacist groups have no place in society and "clearly not in the Republican Party," but the current controversy concerning Donald Trump and his answers over the weekend about
former KKK leader David Duke are more of a presidential campaign that's "like a circus," GOP candidate John Kasich said Monday.
"I don't know what is in his head," the Ohio governor told
CNN's "New Day" program. "It's just one controversy after another . . . The name-calling and what I consider to be childishness, when we are running for president of the United States."
But Kasich still thinks Trump will "probably win everything," in the Super Tuesday primary elections this week, but he promised he'd beat Trump in Ohio.
"Maybe [Ted] Cruz will win in Texas and then has to figure out how to head north with his message," said Kasich. "We'll do okay, but not great. This was never our plan . . . Our hope now is our belief is that we go north and you will begin to see things change."
He continued that while national polls favor Trump, "we don't run a national campaign. I will beat Donald Trump in Ohio. Head to head, I beat him by 18 points in the last poll. I beat Hillary by more than any Republican candidate. I understand — I don't understand that much about the poll, but it doesn't concern me because we don't run in the national election."
Should Kasich win in Ohio, there would be 66 delegates up for grabs, still less than the 82 Trump already has, but Kasich said he has faith that when he wins his home state "it will be a reset" for his campaign, and denied anyone is pressuring him to get out of the race.
"Marco Rubio is trailing in Florida by 17 points; why aren't they telling him to get out and get behind me?" said Kasich.
"I have a better chance of winning in Ohio than he has in Florida. These are Washington insiders . . . Those people — the big lobbyists — I beat them 25 years ago and they resent it. They can have their opinions. I'm not even aggravated by it, but it means nothing to me."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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