Kasich: ‘Don’t think about me as some softy’

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich says voters should not think of him as a “softy” despite his more cautious language about Muslims following the terrorist attacks in Brussels.

{mosads}”I don’t think we ought to namby pamby here,” the Ohio governor said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Tuesday night. “I’ve been saying all along that we need to be not only in the air but on the ground against ISIS and destroy them.”

MSNBC host Chris Matthews pressed Kasich on whether Republican front-runner Donald Trump was being aided politically by his more bellicose response to terrorism, including his proposal to place a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

Kasich, who rejects Trump’s Muslim ban and more incendiary statements about Islam and immigration, said that Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill were never so rash in their responses to crises.

“Don’t think about me as some softy here,” Kasich replied. 

“But I think there’s also words and an attitude that I just don’t think is constructive. Plain and simple.”