John Kasich (R-Ohio) and Donald Trump are not exactly buddies. Back on the campaign trail, Trump criticized everything about the Ohio governor, including his eating habits.
Nevertheless, several sources are reporting that in the weeks before the opening of the Republican National Convention, Trump and his team tried several times to convince Kasich to accept the position of vice president.
CNN is reporting that Donald Trump Jr. approached the Governor to beg him to join the ticket, but that Kasich quickly refused. Kasich’s people are insisting that there were several attempts made to pull Kasich back into the fold. They say that Kasich was told that he would be the most powerful VP in history. Believe it or not, he was told that he would be in charge of both domestic and foreign policy.
Trump source on claim that Kasich was offered most powerful VP opportunity: "Completely false. His vetting read like a trashy novel." 2/2
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 20, 2016
Now that Kasich has both rejected the offer and made it public, the Trump camp denies that it ever happened. One of Trump’s advisers said:
“It’s completely ridiculous. There was never an offer made. It’s completely made up. Gov. Kasich is just being a sore loser.”
Of course, the Trump camp has been glibly lying about things from the beginning. Earlier this week they went to crazy lengths insisting that Melania’s speech was not ripped off from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech. They kept repeating that there was no plagiarism right up until the moment when a speechwriter admitted that she had done it.
The cat-fight over whether the VP offer was ever actually made is playing itself out right there in Kasich’s home state, where Trump is getting the nomination. It’s playing out at the only convention anyone can remember where the hosting governor is staying as far away as possible.
Trump and Kasich don’t even pretend to like each other. So why on earth would Trump want him to be the VP?
First of all, Ohio is a key battleground state. Trump is going to need to win in Ohio if he wants to win the Presidency.
More shockingly, Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t have any intention of doing the hard work if he becomes President. His de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, said:
“He needs an experienced person to do the part of the job he doesn’t want to do. He seems himself more as the chairman of the board, than even the CEO, let alone the COO.”
So Donald Trump denies that he begged the successful Governor of Ohio to serve as his VP, even though Ohio will be a key state to win. He denies it even though he has admitted in public that he doesn’t want the job, he just wants the title and the glory.
Thanks a lot, John Kasich. Now we may have to face Mike Pence as the policy maker in the White House.
Featured image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr. Available through Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Generic License.
