Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) on Wednesday called on the White House to stop the “chaos,” following the public fallout between President Trump and former top aide Stephen Bannon.
“It’s got to settle down, Jake, for the good of the United States of America and being able to solve some of the big problems we have,” Kasich, one of Trump’s most vocal critics within the GOP, told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead.” {mosads}
“We’re not even through the first year and there’s just so much chaos and so much disruption that’s been circling around the administration,” he added.
Kasich’s remarks come after a public feud erupted between Trump and Bannon after the former White House chief strategist made blistering remarks about Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.
Bannon ripped into Trump Jr., calling him “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” for his controversial Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer, according to quotes in the recently released excerpts of Michael Wolff’s upcoming book “Fire and Fury: Inside Trump’s White House.”
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” Bannon said, according to the book.
The White House sought to distance itself from the Breitbart executive chairman, painting him as a deranged and bitter former staffer.
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said in a statement.
“Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books,” the statement continued.
Kasich, who ran unsuccessfully against Trump in the 2016 presidential primary and has been considered a potential 2020 challenger, warned that this heated conflict will dilute support on Capitol Hill and make it more difficult to pass legislation.
“The problem with this is over time people either tune it out or tune it in and it polarizes people more. And if this continues, this disruption, all this talk, all these things that we’re watching, almost like a reality show, then he will lose support on Capitol Hill,” Kasich told Tapper, adding that such disruption could create “more gridlock and, of course, more polarization.”