CLEVELAND – Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s refusal to attend the Republican National Convention has been “difficult” for Donald Trump’s campaign.
“We think it’s a difficult decision when the home state governor doesn’t participate in the convention process,” Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort told reporters Monday morning.
Kasich declined to attend the four-day confab in Cleveland, but is scheduled to make a series of appearances in the city while the GOP convention is underway. The two-term governor has said he cannot bring himself to support Trump as his party’s presidential nominee.
“I was asked if it’s embarrassing that the governor doesn’t want to participate in the convention. I said, it is, but he doesn’t want to participate,” Manafort said. “We invited him to participate and he chose not to. We wanted him to speak at the convention, he chose not to.”
Manafort’s admission that Kasich had declined an invitation to speak comes less than a month after Trump himself said he would not ask GOP leaders who oppose him to deliver remarks at the convention.
“If there’s no endorsement, then I would not invite them to speak,” the candidate said in June.
