Kasich: Trump shares blame for political divide

President Donald Trump, with his divisive tone, bears some responsibility for stoking the political divide amid the mailing of pipe bombs to prominent Democrats, Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Wednesday night.

On Thursday, he upped his criticism, saying he had hoped that Trump could one day get to the point where he could unite the country.

“Absent a ‘Damascus Road’ experience, I’ve become convinced he’s not capable of this,” Kasich said on CNN, referring to the biblical account of Jesus appearing to Saul, a Jewish persecutor of early Christians who would become the apostle Paul.

“He’s not capable of being a unifier. In fact, I’ve become convinced he doesn’t know how to accept personal responsibility and always finds somebody else to blame.”

Kasich made his original remarks Wednesday evening on “The 11th Hour” with Brian Williams on MSNBC.

Williams asked Kasich, a Trump critic who lost to him in the 2016 Republican presidential-nomination race: “Does the president bear some responsibility — obviously not for the bomb-making or the recipients — but does he bear responsibility for the tone that allowed it?”

Kasich responded, “Sure, sure he does. It’s part of the reason why I never endorsed him and I’ve never been personally critical of him. But, yeah, he does bear responsibility for the divisions.

“He has the biggest megaphones. But I think, Brian, you and I have been observers and participants in this business for a long time. When we see Hillary Clinton say — and I said this not long ago in the media — that when she said, “When they go low, we need to go low,” or Eric Holder, ‘When you go low, we need to go low,’ everybody needs to knock it off. But obviously the guy with the biggest megaphone is the one that really has to be careful.”

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Richard Cordray denounced the cascade of pipe bombs.

“Violence has no place in our political disputes — period. I was horrified when someone shot at congressional Republicans at their baseball practice, and I’m appalled at these attacks on Democratic leaders. It’s un-American,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

“At times like this, our country’s leaders should be taking responsibility, not escalating the attacks. That’s why — even though we are in different parties, and on opposite sides of the aisle — I agree with Gov. Kasich’s call for unity. The heightened rhetoric that is coming out of Washington is causing violence and stoking fear throughout our country.”

His opponent, Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine, after a party rally in Columbus, said, “It’s a terrorist act ... there’s no tolerance in our country for terrorism.”

He expressed confidence that law enforcement will identify and capture the suspect or suspects.

Asked if the country’s political divide may have played a role in the mailing of the devices, DeWine replied: “We don’t know who did it. We need to treat this as an act of terrorism.”