Ohio Gov. John Kasich pushed back against family separations by the Trump administration Tuesday, lamenting that people were denying the humanity of undocumented immigrants.
“It seems as though we have lost our sense of humanity,” Kasich told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin. “That these are people. This is flesh and blood. These are children.”
Kasich, a Republican, said children should not be used as “leverage” but declined to offer a personal judgment of President Donald Trump or get into “name calling.”
“I can’t read his heart,” Kasich said, calling it “inappropriate” for him to do so.
Still, Kasich appealed to Trump and the administration to change course and advised everyone to consider the plight of people making this trek to the United States.
“We ever stop and think why they’re showing up there?” Kasich said.
Kasich is a regular critic of Trump, and in the interview, acknowledged the gap between his own preferred policy and much of the base supporting Trump. When presented with a CNN poll showing 58% of Republican respondents supported the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy leading to child separations, Kasich said he thought that was a step “in the right direction” relative to other areas where support is higher among Republicans for policies he opposes.
“Fifty-eight percent, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you would have told me it was 85%,” Kasich said.