WASHINGTON ― Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said Sunday that he will not run for president in 2020.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Kasich, who ran in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, said when CNN’s Dana Bash asked him whether he would challenge President Donald Trump during the next presidential election cycle.
Kasich is a popular two-term governor of Ohio who is term-limited out of office in 2018. He recently launched a political organization to help him maintain a political profile and has a new book scheduled to be released in 2017.
The former Trump primary opponent has emerged as a major critic of the Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In February, he correctly predicted that the inability to bridge the divide between moderates and the hard-right House Freedom Caucus could doom the effort. Kasich also did not want to see the health care law’s Medicaid expansion repealed.
Bash followed up moments later to ask Kasich if he was ruling out ever running for another office.
Kasich hedged a bit on saying never. “I don’t ― I don’t ― I don’t see it,” he said. “I just don’t see it.”
“Ever?” Bash followed up.
“I don’t see it, Dana,” he responded. “I mean, look, I have got other things I have to do. I don’t see it. You don’t close the door on anything, but I have ― I don’t have my eyes on that.”
“I don’t intend to go away, I hate to tell you,” Kasich concluded. “For those that want me to go away, I’m not going away.”
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