Republican presidential candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich defended a comment he made about preventing sexual assault by avoiding parties where alcohol is involved Sunday in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Kasich gave the self-described advice during a town hall in New York last week after a freshman female student asked him how he would make her feel safer regarding sexual assault. His campaign later clarified his position.
“I mean, my daughters are sometime going to go to college, and they’re going to go to parties where there’s alcohol. It’s just you have to be careful,” Kasich said. “My only comment on it, you know, it gets to be when alcohol’s involved, it becomes more difficult for justice to be rendered for a whole variety of reasons. But we can still find a perpetrator.”
Kasich said he didn’t understand how someone could view his comment as victim blaming and talked about his record in Ohio addressing sexual assault.
“I don’t care if they’re at a party with alcohol. Just be careful. That’s what I would tell my daughters, be careful,” Kasich said. “But are you kidding me? Somebody gets sexually assaulted? Of course we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
