Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Sunday that he doesn’t think he will run for president, but he didn’t rule it out either.
“I’m not really interested in running for political office again, I’m interested in being a voice that can help bring the country back together again,” Kasich said during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.
Asked if he meant that he was ruling out a run for president, Kasich responded: “I don’t see it. I just just don’t see it.”
“I don’t see it,” he added, but then qualified his remarks by adding that “you don’t close the door on anything.”
Kasich ran against President Trump in the Republican primary as a more moderate candidate. He lost badly, and the only state he won was his home state.
An iconoclast who opposes many Trump policies, Kasich, 64, would be a logical person to challenge Trump should any Republican decide to run against the president in the 2020 GOP primaries.
Republicans are trying to do too much on their own and should have included Democrats in the effort to replace Obamacare, Kasich said.
“Our party is trying to take on too much as just a party,” the former Republican presidential candidate said in discussing the failure Friday of legislation meant to replace the healthcare law.
Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Kasich warned against attempting sweeping changes like the healthcare bill “without including Democrats from the very beginning, and asking them to be productive.”
The idea that bipartisanship is impossible is “pathetic,” Kasich said.
On the campaign trail, he backed the Medicaid expansion contained within Obamacare while calling to replace the rest of the law.
