Susan Page

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — On a breezy spring morning, Ohio Gov. John Kasich decides to ditch the black SUV in favor of walking about a mile from the CBS studio, where he has just been on Face the Nation, to his next interview about his new book at USA TODAY's bureau.

A videographer from TMZ Sports is waiting at the curb to ask him about Cleveland Cavaliers' All-Star guard Kyrie Irving's assertion that the Earth is flat — "We just care when Kyrie has the ball that the ball is round and not flat," Kasich responds — and a kid in a T-shirt, heading into a subway station, spins around and asks for a selfie. A couple visiting from Dayton introduce themselves and say they voted for him, "and we're not life-long Republicans."

It's a friendlier reception that he got at times in the GOP presidential primaries in 2016.

Almost exactly a year ago, Kasich dropped out of the race — he had won just one contest, in his home state — eliminating the final challenger to Donald Trump's steamroller ride to the Republican nomination. But Kasich refused to endorse Trump, to consider joining him on the GOP ticket or to vote for him in November. (He wrote Arizona Sen. John McCain's name on the ballot instead.)

In Two Paths: America Divided or United, being published Tuesday by Thomas Dunne Books, Kasich argues that Trump was able to win the nomination and the White House against all expectations by tapping a long-term erosion in American culture that has left many voters feeling that their lives are spiraling out of control. "That fear turned out to be the driving emotion of the 2016 presidential campaign, and the front-runner tailored his message to stoke that fear," he wrote.

He is on what can seem like a Quixote-like quest, calling for bipartisanship at a time of polarization; for patience when technology has sped the pace of just about everything; and for a pragmatic perspective that assumes problems that took a long time to develop will take a long time to solve.

"Look, the problem is not just the president; it's all the politicians," Kasich, 64, said in a freewheeling interview with Capital Download, USA TODAY's video newsmaker series. "And the problem in the country is not just the politicians. Do I need to say anything more than 'United Airlines' to see how divided and (how) we treat one another as something other than human beings?"

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He remains no fan of Trump, but he says the president has been learning in office. At an Oval Office meeting in February, Kasich says he offered to help out on issues down the road, including new steps to regulate the pharmaceutical industry. "He said, 'You're right! You're right!'" Kasich says in a growl mimicking the president.

"Look, it's too early; it's not even 100 days for a guy that's never held office before, so give him a chance," he says. "My grade is 'incomplete' for the president. He's got a long way to go."

If the election were now, would he be willing to vote for Trump?

He's not quite ready to say that. "Well, but it isn't," he responds. "Let's see how he does."

In the 2016 race, Kasich offered the most upbeat message and the most extensive governmental resume of anyone in the crowded Republican field. Before being elected and re-elected governor of the Buckeye State, he had served nine terms in the House of Representatives, including a stint as chairman of the powerful Budget Committee.

And if he failed to deny Trump the nomination, well, so did all the others in the crowded field.

The best thing Trump has done as president, Kasich says, is moderate some of his views and temper some of his tweets. "He's backed off a number of things, and so he's beginning to realize things are not very simple," Kasich says. He also praises the cruise-missile strikes in Syria Trump ordered in retaliation for a chemical-weapons attack on civilians. "It did send the message that America is strong."

The worst thing Trump has done as president, he says, is put illegal immigrants who don't have criminal records in fear of being deported. In a case that has divided Republicans in Ohio, he has spoken out against the deportation of Maribel Trujillo-Diaz, an undocumented mother of four U.S.-born children who said she had been fleeing drug cartels when she left Mexico more than a decade earlier.

Kasich's book could be seen as laying the groundwork for another presidential run. It ends with an open letter to his twin daughters, now 17, who will be old enough to vote in their first presidential election in 2020. "I want to do everything I possibly can to ensure that when you fill out your first presidential ballots, you can vote for a candidate who inspires you, who challenges you, who encourages all Americans to think freely and to dream bigly and to celebrate our differences," he wrote. (He acknowledges that the use of the Trumpian adverb "bigly" might have been a wink.)

Someone like their father?

"Very unlikely I will ever seek public office again," Kasich says, although he doesn't rule out the possibility entirely. "You never know if you feel, like,a call to arms," he muses. "There are probably some old dudes that signed up in Vietnam or whatever or in the Gulf War because they felt called."