John Kasich Uses D-Day to Attack Trump’s Border Policy: ‘War on Children’

Appearing Wednesday on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) invoked the 75th anniversary of World War II’s Normandy invasion to attack the Trump administrations’ family separation policy, describing it as a “war on children” and “not in the spirit of what we did on D-Day.”

A partial transcript is as follows: 

DON LEMON: Give me your take on this issue. Tariffs on Mexico and whether this ends up going into effect on Monday. Go!

JOHN KASICH: First of all, the idea is not to have people here coming in the country, so the president slaps a tariff on Mexico, which makes Mexico poorer so then all of a sudden Mexicans say, “I better cross the border to go get a job in the United States.” Okay? That’s number one. Number two, it’s going to raise prices for everybody. It’s just ridiculous, and the president is using this as a weapon, and do I think it’s going to go in on Monday? Who knows. I don’t know what’s going to happen on Monday. These senators are all saying they are all upset, they are all worked up. Where are they going to be when he comes home? Are they going to be tough enough to say this to him when he comes home? Or are they going to cave? I haven’t been too impressed with their ability to stand up and speak out. We’ll have to see. All politics are local, Don. You know, Tip O’Neill said that. It’s true.

When all of a sudden the farmers, the ranchers, and all these folks, and the auto dealers start telling them you that you’re killing their business, guess what? All of a sudden senators go, “Well, I’m very concerned about this,” because all politics are local. So they may get a little more spine because of their constituents are yelling at them and so they got to walk the streets. Donald Trump’s not with them when they’re out there on their own. Go to the town hall. I think people are going to yell at them. They are yelling at them about the environment. I know that’s true. They don’t like these tariffs.

And one other thing, Don. We better stop the war on children that come in this country. There was an article, CBS did extensive reporting on a facility for children in Homestead. I could not read it the first time I saw it because it made me sick to my stomach. I read it the second time and the stories in there are horrific. The idea that we’re going to solve this problem by punishing children that come into this country. That is not America. That is not the spirit of what we did on D-Day. It’s wrong. And if you want to fix this problem, how about some comprehensive immigration reform, a guest worker program and how about helping all those countries where people are in trouble, physically being threatened, help them out there to stop this, so they don’t have to leave their country.