Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich said that President Trump is having a “meltdown” over his poor performance in several recent polls.
Kasich, who ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, claimed on Monday that the president has been looking for someone to blame within his campaign for his weak performance in several polls that show him trailing Joe Biden in a general election matchup.
“He’s in a meltdown, and he looks at his polls, and he doesn’t know who to blame. He blames his advisers. He’s even blaming Fox News now. And he’s flailing, and he doesn’t know how to stop things,” he said in an interview on CNN.
Kasich said Trump’s base that carried him to the Oval Office in 2016 is “shrinking” and that his presidency could create lasting problems for the Republican Party.
“What he doesn’t realize is that base he has, the edges of that base are beginning to fray. That base is getting smaller and smaller. And at the same time, of course, because he’s a Republican, he’s causing a brand problem for Republicans,” he said.
“And mark my words. There’s going to be a point in time where these folks are going to leave, you know. And then many of them will say, ‘Well, I was never part of this. You know, I never supported him.’ But in the meantime, because they had gone along, they have enabled him to do these kinds of what I think are just totally outrageous things,” he added.
Kasich addressed Trump’s Friday speech at Mount Rushmore in which the president highlighted his concerns about the protests taking place throughout the country, including demands to remove statues of U.S. figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. He said that the problems Trump expressed concern over do not exist.
“Well, I’m out here in the middle of America,” Kasich said. “And I don’t know any angry mobs that are trying to teach our kids to hate the country. I’m sure there’s some professor out there doing something or somebody is going to call me and say, ‘oh, you don’t understand what’s going on.’ But I do understand what’s going on. And I just reject it.”
“It’s like the main course is division and anger, and why? Because, Erin, he’s in free fall. And he’s trying to figure out what he can say that stoke up the base, but it’s not going to grow things,” he added.
