Administration

Kasich ‘very optimistic’ about Trump meeting

by Nikita Vladimirov

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said that he is “very optimistic” that President Trump heard his concerns and suggestions during their meeting on Friday.

“He listened very carefully to what I had to say,” Kasich told reporters while summarizing the conversation with the commander in chief.

“We talked about the whole range of issues, including the high cost of pharmaceuticals contained in the Medicaid plan.”
 
{mosads}Kasich was a frequent critic of Trump during the 2016 presidential election and was his final challenger for the Republican presidential nomination. After the election, Trump took an unusually close interest in the Ohio GOP leadership race in what became a successful effort to oust a Kasich ally.
 
When asked about his attitude toward Trump, the Republican governor said that he’s rooting for the president.
 
“The man is the president of the United States. It’s sort of like being on an airplane — you want to root for the pilot,” Kasich said.
The governor also noted that he will be meeting with several White House officials to further discuss the Affordable Care Act.

“I am very optimistic … that the president heard, you know, my concerns about the Affordable Care Act and what we do to change it,” he said.

“The result is, tomorrow, I will be meeting with [White House chief of staff Reince] Priebus and [the Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom] Price with my team and sort of lay out the way in which we can reform it, save money and make sure that people are not left behind,” he added.

 
According to Kasich, he also discussed foreign policy and new economic challenges with Trump.

“I told the president that … it is very important for the administration to speak with one voice” on foreign policy, Kasich said. “He listened and acknowledged it.”

“I also talked a little bit about the issue of … the digital changes in our economy, and how it can leave people behind who, frankly, don’t have the skills to take the next set of jobs,” Kasich added.

There was a degree of confusion in respect to who first arranged the meeting between the former GOP rivals.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for John Kasich rejected a White House statement claiming that the Ohio governor had asked for the meeting.

 
But during a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted that Kasich requested the meeting.

Administration