NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Gov. Kasich

Interview

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CHUCK TODD:Welcome back. With the midterm elections fewer than 90 days from now, the Republican Party appears to be facing a moment of crisis. Right now, President Trump is immensely popular with most Republicans. But there is a significant group that is disenchanted, turned off by the president's rhetoric and his position on issues like healthcare and immigration. Those Republicans live in the suburbs of major cities, like the ones who voted in Tuesday's special election outside of Columbus, Ohio. They sound a lot like the kind of voters former congressman and current Ohio governor and past and possible future presidential candidate John Kasich have called his voters. Well, I spoke to Kasich yesterday, and I began by asking him if the apparent narrow victory by the Republican candidate in that special election constituted a good or a bad night for the G.O.P.

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

Well, it wasn't a good night because this is a district that you should be winning by, you know, overwhelming numbers. Like, you know, the last guy won by 17 points. Something like this. And so, what you had is, I think, a message from the voters to the Republicans that you've got to stop the chaos and you've got to get more in tune.

And stop alienating people and try to figure out how do families do better. I mean, you can't be talking about, you know, being in a fight here where maybe people could lose their health care if they have a preexisting condition, or this business of separating children from their mothers and fathers at the border, or these tariffs that are just beginning to frighten a number of people in business.

These kinds of messages, plus the overall chaos here, the chaos overseas. Chuck, people just want the government to do its job, to improve the situation for them, not to be on the front page and creating a chaotic environment all the time. They don't want that.

CHUCK TODD:

I want to get your reaction to something that Mark Leibovich has written in this morning's New York Times Magazine. It's a profile interview of Paul Ryan. But this is what he writes, governor: "Are Republican leaders so unwilling to condemn Trump because their voters support him so vigorously, or do these voters support Trump so vigorously because so few Republican leaders (LAUGH) have dared to condemn his actions?" Chicken, meet egg.

Look, this was about Paul. Speaker Ryan has been asked to speak out. You know, he's walked a quieter line than you have, for instance. Do you think that's the issue? That basically, not enough people are making a case, essentially, against the president inside the Republican tent?

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

You know, I don't think it's so much making a case against the president. It's making a case for what you believe in. The Republican party has never been for protectionism. The Republican party doesn't support a notion that, that families shouldn't be held together. The Republican party never supported the notion that we should ring up debt and put our kids in so much… so much in debt by doing things that are not responsible. The Republican party has never believed that we should walk away from our allies who have helped us keep the peace since World War II. These positions are, they don't even resemble the Republican party.

CHUCK TODD:

Right. But right now, only President Trump is making that case. There are not many people making the other case here in Washington.

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

The other thing that I don't like, the reason why I did not go to our convention and support Donald Trump as president, is I'm not for a divider. And I'm not for people who say the reason you don't have something is because somebody else took your stuff. That's called victimization.

I don't believe in that.

CHUCK TODD: some people hear you say that, and they think, John Kasich wants to run for president. The question is, does he want to do it as a Republican and fight inside the party and remake it, or does he want to do it as an independent and see if he can essentially put together the coalition you just described.

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

Well, Chuck, I'm a Republican. And the fact is that the Republican candidate for Congress here really called and pleaded with me to do more to help him. No, I think that when they look at the formula for success, look, you not only have success electorally, but when you're helping people to rise, you feel good about yourself. I mean, I--

CHUCK TODD:

You're punting my 2020 question a little bit, though--

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

Well, Chuck, I don't know what I'm doing. You know that. (LAUGH) What I'm doing now… look, I'm staying alive. I'm speaking out. But every time I say anything or observe something, people want to say, oh, well, that's because he's running for president. I really don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. I don't know. But here's what I do know. My job as a human being, ultimately, is to serve the Lord. And if I'm helping people to realize their God-given purpose and destiny, then I'm striking tin, and that's good.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, I want to put up something that Henry Olsen in the National Review wrote this week about your 20-- he calls it John Kasich's 2020 dream.

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

Oh.

CHUCK TODD: "He's too Republican for disaffected Democrats and too experienced for voters who want radical change." Then he goes on to note you lost two bids for office. And he thinks the third one wouldn't end differently. But I'm curious about that first one. Are you too Republican for those center- centrist Democrats? And are you too experienced for the times?

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH:

I don't know, Chuck, what the mood is. What I know is what's true today is not true a couple hours from now, that what's on your show now is going to probably be old news in, like, two hours.

CHUCK TODD: Thanks a lot--

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH: So you can't predict. You cannot predict where this country's going, where the mood is going, because everyone in the country knows that it's chaotic. They know there's something wrong with our compass and they really want it fixed. So I don't really worry too much about any of this. I'm going to do my job and that's all I can do.

CHUCK TODD: I want to get your reaction very quickly. There's been some discomfort from some corners about some commentaries that have taken place on Fox News in prime time. Give you're a former Fox News host, I want to get you to respond, react, to what Laura Ingraham said this week. Take a listen to it, sir.

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CHUCK TODD: Reaction?

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH: You know, she said that this didn't have anything to do about race, but you know- and, and I'm not going to- I'm not- I know her a little bit. I'm not going to say that she was saying this because of race. But what I am saying is this kind of language of division is not, is not helpful to us, Chuck. And so, look, at the end--

CHUCK TODD: Do you worry though that- I mean, if you think about it, this issue with the Republican base, they talk to it. They talk to the Republican base directly. Has that made your job harder inside the Republican party?

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH: You know, Chuck, I think one of the things that's happening is that people have been increasing-- not everybody, but many have been increasingly unwilling to put themselves in the shoes of somebody else. Even when you think about family separation at the border, some people say, well, you know, they had a choice. They didn't need to go there. Well, many of them had to go there to save their kids' lives, literally, okay. So look, Chuck, I don't want to just be doing this, you know; some sort of religious hour here.

CHUCK TODD:I understand.

GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH: But I think what's fundamentally changed our country is that many people have not come to understand what faith is, which is loving your neighbor, elevating others, sometimes in front of yourself, putting yourself in other people's shoes. And when we don't do that, we lose the essence of our country. When my father and my uncle talked about the Great Depression, everybody pulled together. And what we're seeing now is people pulling apart rather than coming together. And I think that's an element of religiosity. If you're a humanist, I love you anyway because, you know, you believe in making a better tomorrow. But we need the compass back. And I, frankly, believe it comes from on high. Faith, togetherness, we can do it.

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