Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich – one of President Trump’s most ardent Republican critics – took aim at the president during a speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention and urged other Republicans to vote for the Democratic ticket in November .
Kasich – a rival of Trump during the GOP’s 2016 presidential candidacy that never ended his party’s nominee – on Monday offered his support to presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and called on fellow Republicans “to take off our partisan hats and us nation first for ourselves and, of course, for our children. “
Criticizing the president, Kasich claimed that “many of us are deeply concerned about the current path we have taken over the past four years. It is a path that leads to division, dysfunction, irresponsibility and growing vitriol among our citizens. Continue that path will have dire consequences for the soul of America, because we are being taken the wrong way by a president who has pitied one against the other. “
CUOMO CALLS ‘EUROPEAN VIRUS’ CORONAVIRUS IN TRUMP-BASHING SPEECH
Kasich emphasizes that “I am a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility for my country. That is why I have chosen to appear at this convention. “
He noted that “in normal times such a thing would probably never happen, but these are not normal times. I am proud of my Republican heritage. It is Lincoln’s party that reflects its basic principles of unity and a higher purpose. “But what I have witnessed for the past four years, these main characters marry.”
Kasich acknowledged that “there are areas where Joe and I absolutely do not agree. But that’s OK, because that’s America. Because of our differences, we respect each other as human beings, each of us seeking justice and to purpose. “
And by pushing back against the president’s remarks hours earlier that Biden would be a ‘Trojan horse for socialism’, Kasich insists’ I do not believe so, because I’m now the man’s mate ridiculous, loyal, respectful . And you know, no one shot Joe Biden. “
Before Kasich’s speech, Trump defeated his one-time rival.
“John was a Republican a loser. Never even came close,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One as Trump flew back to the nation’s capital after the campaign halted Monday in the general election campaign states Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“He has not done too well with Trump. He has made easy choices,” the president added.
Kasich was all but a loser in selective politics until his White House ran.
He won a seat in the state Senate as a 26-year-old for the first time as a candidate, in 1978. Four years later, he fired a local Democrat in winning the lower house election. He was easily elected 8 times.
Ater paused for nearly a decade, Kasich won elections as governor of Ohio in 2010 and was re-elected four years later.
But in the 2016 GOP presidential candidates, Kasich won only his home state of Ohio.
Kasich was not the only former Republican governor to speak on the first night of the Democratic convention.
“I am a lifelong Republican,” said former Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. In her brief remarks sent out at the convention, she called Biden ‘a person decent enough, stable enough, strong enough to get our economy back on track. A person who can work with anyone, Democrats and Republicans to get things done. “
Former Rep. Susan Molinari of New York, who gave a keynote address at the 1996 Republican convention, also spoke at the confab. She called Biden “a really good man and he is exactly what this nation needs right now.”
And 2010 nominee GOP in California, Meg Whitman – a former CEO of Hewlett Packard and current CEO of Quibi, a streaming platform that generates content for mobile devices – claimed that ‘Donald Trump has no idea how to become a business, let alone a economy. Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a plan that will strengthen our economy for working people and small business owners. “
The Trump campaign – pointing to all four Republican speakers – called them “nothing but useful idiots for the radical left. They would have liked to have transferred our country to Crooked Hillary, and they still support the left-wing Democratic agenda.”
