Gov John Kasich: If Josh Earnest Was My Spokesman I Would Tell Him To Never Speak Like That Again

Presidential candidate Governor John Kasich (R-OH) joined Brian Kilmeade on Kilmeade & Friends and sounded off on WH Press Sec Josh Earnest for the way he blamed republicans in a question on a possible government shutdown. Given Kasich’s history in balancing budgets, he offered up first-rate insight for what is going on in Washington and also offered support of Speaker John Boehner.

Gov. Kasich recounted where he was on September 11, 2001, weighed in on where we stand in the war on terror & talked about other 2016 news such as Hillary Clinton’s server & Donald Trump’s comments on Carly Fiorina. Highlights are below.

Listen to the full interview:

PLEASE NOTE: These are not verbatim

On Boehner and a possible government shut down…
A government shut down will work if you can actually see your way to a successful resolution. I believe being Speaker of the House, any house, is probably the hardest political job you can have in our country because you can only assert yourself so far and at the same time you have to guide people who have different philosophies, ideologies and self-interests. If you are going to get yourself into the business of a shutdown you better make sure you have the prospects of victory not that you just want to make some point. The American people will punish you if you are just playing politics or are trying to achieve something that can’t be achieved.
On Josh Earnest saying if congressional leaders don’t accept an invitation to negotiate, we will have a government shutdown.

With that statement, it doesn’t sound like the admin is willing to be constructive in negotiations with republicans. A big concern for republicans is planned parenthood funding . There might be an approach that they can take where they can clear that they don’t want to fund this org any longer and there are other alternatives.

I don’t like that comment out of the Press Sec from the WH. It is just not the way you can do things in this country, just dismiss country. That just isn’t the way to handle things. Let me tell you, if he was my spokesman, he would be in my office and I would tell him don’t you ever talk like that again. It is not good. Not good.

Budgets are primarily an ideological battle. Republicans and Democrats rarely work together to pass a budget. There are a lot of spending bills where both sides can work things out and that kind of rhetoric only alienates the GOP and it isn’t helpful to this country.

On the 14th anniversary of 9/11…
It’s our modern Pearl Harbor in a way. It is something that we will talk about for the rest of our lives.

On taking in refugees…
Obviously, we don’t want to take people in who we don’t appropriately screen but we have a responsibility here as well. The President is proposing 10,000. Germany is going to take 800,000. It is fundamentally a European problem, but we have a responsibility. The inscription at the Statue of Liberty ‘Give us your tired and poor and those who want to be free.’ We have a responsibility but we don’t let people storm in here. We have got to make sure we know who they are. A number of them could probably give great value to the world—surgeons.

In addition to that, we should think if we can provide humanitarian aid and logistical support.
Lack of action in Syria…

We should have been supporting these rebel groups a long time ago. At the same time, the president draws a red line and then walks away from it which creates confusion and great uncertainty. Whenever there is a void of US firm action bad things fill that void in many of the cases. Because the US has not been firm, because we have not led, I think there are profound implications. There is no question that our inability to drive Assad out in the early days by supporting those who were in opposition to him created at least a significant part of this problem.

On Russia moving into Syria…
Let’s determine what Russia is doing. This is bc we haven’t handled Putin in the right way. Putin is a bully and we have not been firm with him. Frankly, our EU allies ought to have an emergency session about this and if what appears to be happening is happening then we have to strengthen the sanction we have on Russia right now. I see these are possibly unraveling. The French talking about easing the sanctions. This should send a clear message to our friends, we cannot deal with these people unless you are willing to stand up and take a firm position. It is extremely troubling.

On Hillary Clinton…
They are trying to figure out how to get it behind them. When they started it they didn’t get it all out there. I don’t understand why you would have a server in your house. It doesn’t make any sense to me. She will be held accountable but that is later. She will be formidable but I will tell you this, she won’t beat me.

On Trump/Fiorina…
That rhetoric is clearly unfortunate.