Trump: ‘I automatically win’ if Kasich would just quit
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, reads The Snake poem during a rally at Nathan Hale High School today in West Allis, Wis.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich leaves after his campaign stop at the Armory on Saturday in Janesville, Wis.
MILWAUKEE » Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is pushing rival John Kasich to get out of the White House race, arguing that the Ohio governor shouldn’t be allowed to collect future delegates because the nomination is already beyond his grasp.
Trying hard to right himself after a difficult week, Trump said it was unfair for Kasich, the winner of only his home state’s primary, to continue campaigning. He suggested that Kasich, who has pledged to make it to the summer convention, follow the lead of former candidates Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush — and quit.
“If I didn’t have Kasich, I automatically win,” Trump said Sunday evening in West Allis, Wisconsin.
Trump said Kasich could ask to be considered at the GOP convention in Cleveland in July even without competing in the remaining nominating contests. He said earlier Sunday that he had shared his concerns with Republican National Committee officials at a meeting in Washington this past week.
Kasich’s campaign countered that neither Trump nor Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would have enough delegates to win the nomination outright in Cleveland.
“Since he thinks it’s such a good idea, we look forward to Trump dropping out before the convention,” said Kasich spokesman Chris Schrimpf.
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Across the political aisle, Democrat Hillary Clinton told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the FBI had yet to request an interview regarding the private email server she used as secretary of state.
Clinton and her Democratic opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, announced they’d agreed to debate in New York before the important April 19 primary, though their campaigns continued debating over when to schedule the face-off. Sanders, meanwhile, fired up a crowd in Wausau, Wisconsin, hoping to continue a string of recent campaign victories even as Clinton maintains a sizable delegate lead.
Trump’s call for Kasich to bow out came as Republican concerns grew about the prospect of convention chaos if Trump fails to lock up his party’s nomination — or even if he does.
Behind Cruz in the polls in Wisconsin, Trump faces the prospect that a loss on Tuesday there will raise further doubts that he can net the needed delegates, making it far easier for his party to oust him in a floor fight at the convention in Cleveland in July.
Cruz, Trump’s closest challenger, has only a small chance to overtake the real estate mogul in the delegate hunt before the convention. Cruz spent Sunday rallying supporters, including conservative Wisconsin talk radio hosts who oppose Trump’s candidacy.
Kasich acknowledges that he cannot catch up in the delegate race, leaving a contested convention his only path to victory. He has faced calls in the past to step aside, but those nudges became less frequent following his decisive victory last month in his home state.
Still, Kasich suggested that a contested convention would not involve the chaos that party leaders fear.
“Kids will spend less time focusing on Bieber and Kardashian and more time focusing on how we elect presidents,” Kasich told ABC. “It will be so cool.”
Republicans fear a bruising internal fight would damage the party in November’s general election. Trump also isn’t ruling out the possibility of running as an independent if he isn’t the nominee, making it that much harder for the GOP to retake the White House.
Such talk has “consequences,” said GOP Chairman Reince Priebus, though he tried to quell the prospect of a convention fight. He told ABC that the process will be clear and open, with cameras there “at every step of the way.”
Frustration with the GOP field has stoked calls in some Republican corners for the party to use a contested convention to pick someone not even on the ballot. Priebus acknowledged that was a remote possibility, but said he believed his party’s nominee would be “someone who’s running.”
Trump has been on the defensive as he struggled to explain away a week of controversies over abortion, nuclear weapons and his campaign manager.
“Was this my best week? I guess not,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday.”
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Associated Press writer Josh Lederman reported from Washington.
19 responses to “Trump: ‘I automatically win’ if Kasich would just quit”
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Trump really has them scared because he’s the only one who can beat Hilliar.
The Democratic Party dream is to have Donald Trump as the nominee. The Senate, and less likely the House, would revert to Democratic control if he’s at the top of the ticket. “I love the poorly educated!” Go Trump!
Baloney
Actually polls show Trump LOSES to Hillary while Kasich would beat Hillary
It’s a waste of time to use facts against most Trump supporters. They literally don’t care that he’s flipped flopped on most issues at least three times, lies like crazy, and has no understanding of topics he discusses. And he’s making promises he knows will never pass Congress.
Facts don’t matter. We all learned that with Obama. Mr Trump has learned well. Little boy Kasich should just go home as he is spoiling the party
Kasich is the only qualified Republican candidate. he is a decent governor who actually gets things done and has a great resume.
And hated within his own party; anyone actually dealing with him has said he is overbearing, acerbic and condescending. But, hey you work at a pizza joint, so why would you know that— fafa troll?
Gov. John Kasich is a decent governor? Really? This is the person that signed a measure to open the state parks to drilling for oil and gas. Is it because of the donations by Marathon Oil? But wait, less than 4 years later, he reverses himself and tries to say he always opposed horizontal drilling and fracking on public lands. His reversal came only a day after the dems. in Ohio called for an investigation into a marketing plan to promote fracking on public land.
“Just quit”. What an ego hog. Drumpf thinks the nomination should simply be handed to him because he’s so fa-a-a-abulous. I suppose this is the political version of eminent domain: I want it, I’m entitled to it, gimme it.
Kasich ought to make him an offer, a cool billion or two ought to be about right. C’mon, Drumpf — show us how bad you want it! This is bidness, after all, right?
Nothing about this character is automatic, save for a habit of pushing the exact wrong button.
Now that the GOP field has shrunk to three, Trump is worried and really doesn’t want Kasich to quit. When there were multiple normal candidates, they split up the votes while Trump kept all the ignoramuses, racists, and misogynists. When it gets down to just Trump vs. one normal candidate, the normal votes will outnumber the kook votes.
I don’t see why the media is handling Hillary with kid gloves, just as they did with Obama. I get numerous emails about the fraud in the Clinton Foundation where it gained so much money from foreign countries where she did business as Secretary of State. The Foundation is in Canada because they don’t have the same intimate disclosure laws as the USA. I try to be neutral thinking, but whenever she lashes out at Sanders–it is just lies, lies, lies. In national polls she scores seriously low in credibility and I can see it!!
In any event, it will all be moot. The binary facts about Trump are that he will not only lose, but lose in a historic and profound way. Consider the following, among the following three groups: women, voters under 34 and communities of color, Trump is not just doing poorly, but regardless of who the D candidate, who trails, at least two to one. States like Utah, which no one would ever consider as potentially flipping over, have such a distaste for Trump, have recent polls indicating a flip to the D candidate. Most polling experts, at present, are predicting that Trump will not even get 185-190 votes of the electoral college. As a point of reference, when Obama trounced Romney, Mitt received 206 electoral college votes. Make no mistake about it, by any modern historic metric, Trump, is by far, the most unpopular presidential candidate in the modern era, and has the potential to lose the election by 10 million in the popular vote (Mitt lost by 5 million)……
Maybe Marco Rubio should have stayed in the race,since he had more delegates than Kasich. Using The Contested Convention theory. At this point, Kasich is a mere spoiler.He has NO chance!!He’s banking on a contested convention to win the nomination??? He has as much chance as me singing this famous Disney song on American Idol…..”If you wish upon a star,doesn’t matter where you are” la,la la. Haaaaaaa,ha!ha!
Some FYI. Did you know past running presidents, many ,did not win the nomination,based the majority delegate votes???___ Washington Post had an excellent story about it yesterday….good read.
You can do this Donald Let’s “Make America Great Again”IMUA
Those big heavy brass orbs in his undies must be yuuuuge! It’s a wonder he can walk at all, having to carry all that weight around every day.
TRUMP 2016 We are almost there.
Are you going to stop posting when he’s finally out? Or, come up with some nutty conspiracy theory? I’m guessing the latter.
Maybe after his first four years if he doesn’t go for a second term.