[DIGEST: Huffington Post, MSNBC]

In an interview, Ohio Gov. John Kasich called his reluctance to back Donald Trump “something that’s a matter of conscience for me.” Kasich, who declined to speak at the Republican National Convention, insisted that the billionaire businessman’s divisive rhetoric beat out his own unsuccessful presidential campaign, which he had once hoped would “raise the bar” and prevent an already fractured party from dividing further. “The things that I said during the campaign matter deeply to me, and we are just two, you know, in a way of speaking, two different companies, different visions, different culture, different directions,” he said. “I just felt this was the right thing to do. I’m not here to disrupt. I’m not here to criticize. I’m just here because I’m standing on the things that I believe are best for the country.”