Jeb Bush and John Kasich refused to be drawn into the war of words between Donald Trump and Pope Francis on Thursday.
At CNN’s South Carolina Republican town hall, Kasich simply said he was “pro-Pope.”
The Ohio governor was responding to a question about comments in which Francis said Trump is “not Christian” if he wants to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“This man has brought more sense of hope and more about the do’s in life than the don’ts,” Kasich said. “This guy has been so humble.”
Bush, whose mother, Barbara sat in the audience, didn’t criticize the Pope’s comments. But he said he personally wouldn’t “question people’s Christianity.”
“I think that’s a relationship they have with their Lord and Savior and themselves. So I just don’t think it’s appropriate to question Donald Trump’s faith,” Bush said. “He knows what his faith is.”
Trump will appear at the town hall later in the evening. At a rally earlier in the day at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, he said the Pope’s statement was “disgraceful.”
Kasich opened the CNN event by reflecting on a campaign trail moment that’s quickly gone viral. At a forum in Clemson earlier in the day, a tearful young man confessed to Kasich that after suffering personal losses, he had gone through a very dark period in life. Now, he had found hope in the message that Kasich was taking to voters, he said, prompting the governor to hug the man.
“There are a lot of people out there who are lonely,” Kasich told moderator Anderson Cooper. “Could you believe that young man?”
He expressed frustration with the frenetic pace of presidential politics and noted how important it is to “slow down” and listen to people in need.
“We’ve got to slow down,” Kasich told Cooper. “You’ve got to celebrate other people’s wins, and sometimes you’ve got to sit with them and cry.”
Kasich is coming off a strong second-place showing in New Hampshire last week, but with his moderate message, there is little expectation that he will have a strong performance here during Saturday’s GOP primary.
When one woman in the audience asked whether he would consider appointing any of his fellow White House hopefuls to his Cabinet, Kasich light-heartedly reminded her that it was much too early in the race.
“Well, look. I’m not going to be measuring like, the drapes. I’ve got a long way to go. We’re really, really early,” Kasich said.
He did, however, call one former candidate a “terrific guy” whom he would consider appointing to his administration: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
“I like him very much,” Kasich said, before saying about the rest of the field: “They all deserve an awful lot of respect. I don’t want to fight with them.”
At the conclusion of his time at the CNN event, Kasich opened up about how losing his parents in a car accident as a young adult forever shaped his outlook on life.
“They were at the Burger King because they got the second cup of coffee for free. That’s the way the mailman and Mrs. Kasich lived,” Kasich said about the day his parents died. “I went into a black hole.”
He soon found God, Kasich said, though “the pain still comes.”
“As a result of my parents’ accident, it’s allowed me to hug that boy,” he added.
The town hall comes as Trump continues to hold a sizable lead in South Carolina. A new CNN/ORC poll released this week had the real-estate mogul on top at 38%, followed by Cruz at 22%, Marco Rubio at 14% and Jeb Bush at 10%. Ben Carson and Kasich were at the bottom of the pack, at 6% and 4%, respectively.
Cruz, Rubio and Carson participated in CNN’s first South Carolina town hall Wednesday in Greenville.
At that event, Rubio once again accused Cruz of spreading inaccurate information about his record. Cruz shrugged off being called a liar by both Rubio and Trump, saying: “Both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are following this pattern — that whenever anyone points to their actual record … they start screaming liar, liar, liar.”