MILWAUKEE -- A frustrated Donald Trump worked to right his campaign on Sunday after a rough week and found himself on the defensive just two days before the closely watched primary in Wisconsin where he faces the prospect of a loss that could stem his momentum toward securing the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump trails Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the polls in Wisconsin. A loss in Tuesday's primary will raise doubts that the billionaire real estate mogul can net the needed delegates to win the nomination outright, making it far easier for his party to oust him in a floor fight at the national convention in July.
Cruz, Trump's closest challenger, has only a small chance to overtake him in the delegate hunt before the convention. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has none.
Trump called for Kasich to drop out of the Republican race, arguing that the Ohio governor who's only won his home state so far shouldn't be allowed to continue accumulating delegates if he has no chance of being the nominee.
Working to recover his edge after a difficult week, Trump said Kasich could ask to be considered at the Republican convention in Cleveland even without competing in the remaining nominating contests. Trump told reporters at a Milwaukee diner that he had relayed his concerns to Republican National Committee officials at a meeting in Washington this past week.
"He's taking my votes," Trump said about Kasich.
Kasich's campaign tried to flip the script, contending that neither Trump nor Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would have enough delegates to win the nomination outright going into the convention.
"Since he thinks it's such a good idea, we look forward to Trump dropping out before the convention," said Kasich spokesman Chris Schrimpf.
And Kasich, in an earlier interview with ABC's "This Week," said he expected an "open convention" and that delegates would look to him, with experience in Congress and the state level., as the candidate most likely to defeat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. "That's why I think I'm going to be the nominee."
Trump's declaration came as Republican concerns grew about the prospect of convention chaos if Trump fails to lock up his party's nomination -- or even if he does.
Kasich has acknowledged that a contested convention is his only path to victory. He has faced calls in the past to bow out, but those nudges had dimmed following his decisive victory last month in his home state.
Still, Kasich suggested that a contested convention would not involve the chaos that party leaders fear. He told ABC TV that a contested convention will be "so much fun."
Republicans fear an unseemly internal fight would damage the party in November's general election, and Trump isn't ruling out the possibility that if he's not the nominee, he could run as an independent, likely sinking Republican chances for winning the White House.
Frustration with the Republican field has stoked calls in some Republican corners for the party to use a contested convention to pick someone not even on the ballot. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus acknowledged that was a remote possibility, but he said he believed his party's candidate would be "someone who's running."
Wisconsin has emerged as a proving ground for anti-Trump forces as the front-runner's campaign stumbled, leading his rivals to question his maturity as a candidate.
President Barack Obama has warned that foreign leaders are alarmed about what they see transpiring in the U.S. election -- especially with Trump, whose calls for banning Muslim immigrants has reverberated in the Middle East. But Sen. Lindsey Graham, who dropped out of the race and has urged Republicans to support Cruz, said Sunday that people in the Mideast need not fear too much.
"The Congress is going to be around, no matter who is the president," Graham said in Cairo, while leading a congressional delegation to the region.
In a Washington Post interview, Trump warned that a "very massive recession" is coming, and he said he could eliminate the $19 trillion national debt in two terms. Most economists say that's impossible without wrecking the federal budget.
Trump was trying to recover from a rough week in which he found himself struggling to explain away controversies over abortion, nuclear weapons and his campaign manager.
"Was this my best week? I guess not," Trump said on "Fox News Sunday."
Yet as he campaigned in Milwaukee, Trump returned to the confident bravado his supporters have come to expect. Stopping for breakfast at Miss Katie's Diner, Trump predicted he'd do "very well" on Tuesday.
On the Democratic side, Clinton said she has yet to get a request from the FBI for an interview regarding the private email system she used as secretary of state, an issue still dogging her campaign.
She also told NBC's "Meet the Press" that she was confident her campaign and Bernie Sanders' could settle on a debate date before the consequential April 19 primary in New York.
The Democratic race has grown increasingly bitter, too, though less hostile than the Republican brawl. Both Clinton and Sanders had their sights set on New York, where Clinton hopes to avoid an upset in the state she represented in the Senate. Sanders, who was born in Brooklyn, can claim New York as his home state.
Clinton said she feels "sorry" for young Sanders supporters who believe unreliable information spread by his campaign about support she's received from fossil-fuel interests.
Not so, Sanders told CNN's "State of the Union."
"We were not lying," the Vermont senator said. "We were telling the truth."
