VANDALIA, OHIO: Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and John Kasich said Saturday that they were so disgusted by the chaos at Donald Trump’s rallies that they may not support the billionaire businessman if he becomes the GOP nominee.
A defiant Trump has denied that he has encouraged violence at his events. But the scenes from his aborted rally in Chicago on Friday night appeared to be a final straw for some rivals, who had pledged, despite deep concerns about his qualifications, to support the GOP front-runner if he were to clinch the party’s nomination.
Rubio said it was “getting harder every day” to keep his word, citing the way Trump is “dividing both the party and the country so bitterly.”
The Florida senator wouldn’t say whether he’d look for a third-party candidate to support if Trump does become the Republican standard-bearer, but added, “The fact that you even have to ask me the question shows why [Trump] is a problem.”
Kasich, who has largely avoided tangling with Trump until now, said the real estate mogul has made it “extremely difficult” to envision supporting him as the Republican nominee.
“Frankly, I’m a little shocked that we got to this point, I’m shocked at it,” the Ohio governor said.
“We cannot create in this country a toxic environment where images of people slugging it out at a campaign rally, think about it, are transmitted all over the globe,” he said.
The extraordinary shift by the two came just a few days before Tuesday’s elections in five delegate-rich states, including their home states of Florida and Ohio.
Only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is closest to Trump in the delegate count, said he would unequivocally support the businessman if he emerges from the primary victorious. Still, Cruz — eager for Rubio and Kasich to get out of the race after their home-state primaries on Tuesday so he can take Trump on in a head-to-head contest — blamed his rival for encouraging the kind of “nasty violence” that occurred in Chicago.
“More than once I’ve had protesters who get up and raise a point, and if they are being civil and courteous, I’ll actually engage in a conversation with them and treat them with civility and respect,” Cruz said. “I think the way you interact with the citizens expresses what kind of person that you will be.”
President Barack Obama, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Dallas, said those who aspire to lead the country “should be trying to bring us together and not turning us against one another,” and he urged leaders to “speak out against violence.”
“If they refuse to do that, they don’t deserve our support,” he said.
On Saturday night, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus released a statement calling for calm. He said that with the world watching the U.S. presidential election, political leaders in both parties have a responsibility to ensure that the “discourse we engage in promotes the best of America.”
Priebus never mentioned Trump by name and focused his comments on leaders in both parties.
The RNC chair said he hopes voters can exercise their First Amendment rights in a manner “that is respectful of our fellow Americans.” And he said violence “is never the answer.”
Trump told CNN late Friday: “I don’t take responsibility. Nobody’s been hurt at our rallies.”