‘Sensitive, thin-skinned operator’: John Kasich blasts Donald Trump ahead of president’s visit to Dayton

DAYTON, Ohio – On the morning Donald Trump is expected to visit Dayton to console victims’ families and thank first-responders from Sunday’s mass shooting, Ohio’s former governor called the president “sensitive” and “thin-skinned.”

John Kasich, a Republican who ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, was referring in particular to Trump’s tweets about former President Barack Obama and Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic primary opponent hoping to take on Trump in the 2020 election.

O’Rourke is from El Paso, Texas, where roughly 13 hours before Dayton’s shooting, a separate gunman killed 22 at a Walmart.

Trump told O’Rourke to “be quiet,” saying the Democrat is “embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary…”

“As a leader, sometimes you’ve gotta have a stiff upper lip,” Kasich said. “You can’t be a sensitive, thin-skinned operator, because you are in a position where you’re sort of the father or the mother of the country… You’ve gotta be bigger than other people and not take the bait.”

Kasich was speaking from Dayton’s Oregon District, the popular entertainment area where a gunman on Sunday killed nine and injured 27 before he himself was killed by police.

Before talking to reporters, Kasich bent down to write "God Bless You" in chalk on the sidewalk. 

“It becomes something other than a television story when you see the flowers and the pictures of the nine lost and the writings on the sidewalk,” Kasich said. “It could be you and your spouse going out on a Saturday night... It just seems impossible that that kind of violence could happen here, but it did. And now, you know, we can’t let it take us down.“

Kasich also cautioned against giving Trump’s visit too much weight.

“The healing in a community needs to come from the community itself,” Kasich said.

Trump is expected to arrive in Dayton sometime Wednesday morning, though details about the visit are scant. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a notification of "VIP movement" from 10:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The president is expected to visit with victims’ families, survivors and law enforcement personnel.