Kristol added, “After the midterm elections in November, the whole party is going to ask whether it makes sense, politically, to stick with Trump. Trump knows that moment is coming, and so does Kasich.”

Kasich has been busy making the case that Republicans should be wary of following Trump’s lead. He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the Aug. 7 election in Ohio’s heavily Republican 12th Congressional District was a reaction to the “chaos” he says voters see in Trump’s Washington, from the president’s conduct to Trump’s hard-line stances on trade and immigration.

“What you had is, I think, a message from the voters to the Republicans that you’ve got to stop the chaos and you’ve got to get more in tune and stop alienating people,” Kasich said. “It wasn’t a good night.”