Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich thinks Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump would need a mental health screening if he were to ask him to run for vice president in November.
“There are points when your candidate can be so delusional, that you need to get them psychiatric help,” the ex-White House hopeful told a crowd of 500 on Thursday during an event hosted by East Tennessee State University’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter.
“I think that would be one of them,” Gingrich said, responding to a student who asked whether he would accept if Trump tapped him to be his running mate.
As opposed to himself, Gingrich suggested John Kasich would be the ideal vice presidential pick for Republicans should the Ohio governor fail to make it to the top of the GOP ticket in 2016.
“I think the most obvious vice presidential nominee is John Kasich for a very simple fact,” he explained.
“No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio,” Gingrich said, noting that Kasich “carried 86 out of 88 counties” to win his second term as the Buckeye State’s governor in 2014.
Kasich is currently running third, behind billionaire Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in the race for the GOP nomination. The two-term governor pulled off a victory in his home state earlier this month, but continues to trail is two opponents in Wisconsin and is polling behind Trump in Pennsylvania and New York.
Despite Gingrich’s praise, Kasich has firmly dismissed the possibility of becoming someone’s running mate. The Ohio governor told MSNBC earlier this month that “under no circumstances” would he run alongside Cruz or Trump.
“I’m going to be nobody’s vice president, OK?” he added, during a town hall in Wisconsin last week. “I will not be anybody’s vice president. Just so you know.”
