Real estate mogul Donald Trump hammered Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) over his career with failed Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers Wednesday night at CNBC’s Republican presidential debate.
Kasich was a Columbus-based managing director for the bank from 2001-2008 and, as Bloomberg has pointed out, was one of 700 people in the company with that title. But after claiming that Kasich was only able to balance the budget in the Buckeye State because “he got lucky with fracking,” Trump painted Kasich as a managing partner of the firm as well as a member of its board.
“This is the man that was a managing general partner at Lehman Bros. when it when down the tubes and almost took every one of us with us (sic), including Ben and myself,” the billionaire said. “Because I was there and I watched what happened. Lehman Brothers started it all. He was on the board and he was a managing general partner.”
“He was so nice,” Trump added. “He was such a nice guy and he said ‘Oh, I’m never gonna attack. But then his poll numbers tanked. That’s why he’s on the end. And he got nasty.”
The knock on Kasich’s position at the edge of the stage drew whoops of laughter from the audience. But the real estate mogul seemed to lose the audience’s goodwill with his final attack line.
“So you know what? You can have him,” Trump said of Kasich.
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