Jeb Bush, son of the late former President George H.W. Bush, told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday that his family was celebrating the legacy of his father and praised the Trumps for being “gracious.” . . .
“What people want to talk about is: Well why isn’t the president giving the eulogy? And it’s because we have a unique circumstance here,” he explained. “My brother was president. It’s like, I’m sorry. First dibs, as we used to say. I don’t know how to explain it other than that.” . . .
Bush described his father as “the most generous, kind person you’d ever meet,” and said he hoped his father’s “kindler, gentler” approach would prevail over the more combative style of politics.
“My dad will be surrounded by friends inside the National Cathedral and many that couldn’t get in. The guy has built a network that is pretty amazing,” he said. “People want to share their love for him, and it’s just a great time to be his son.”
“This is a time to celebrate George H.W. Bush, not to grieve his loss, and that’s what we’re doing as a family right now,” he emphasized. (Read more from “Jeb Bush Says It’s a Time to ‘Celebrate’ His Father and the Trump Family Has Been ‘Gracious'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/16686503931_12b5c702ff_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2018-12-04 19:27:272018-12-04 19:24:14Jeb Bush Says It’s a Time to ‘Celebrate’ His Father and the Trump Family Has Been ‘Gracious’
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made it clear Monday night that he takes claims of Russian meddling in the presidential election with a grain of salt.
“The Ruskies are out there sticking things in people’s brains?’ I mean, come on,” Bush said during an appearance Monday in Kingsport, Tenn.
Bush, a candidate in the Republican primary, said the election was not about who the Russians wanted to win, but who America’s voters chose.
“They [the Russians] had a candidate that they thought would be better than Hillary Clinton, but they didn’t influence the election. The American people made up their minds on this,” he said.
Bush also refused to join the chorus of criticism over Trump’s secretary of state choice, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who has conducted business with Russia and was honored by Russia for his partnership efforts. He said that upcoming hearings will get to the truth.
“My guess is what they’ll find is a guy with vast experience. A patriot. … Someone who will represent the U.S. really, very well,” he said.
Bush, who was a foil for Trump’s jabs throughout the Republican presidential primary process, noted that his opinion of Trump is shifting.
“I didn’t vote for him. I made it clear I wasn’t going to support him. In my mind at that time I didn’t think either candidate passed the threshold of who should be sitting behind that desk in the Oval Office,” Bush said.
“Now, he’s won. My hope and prayer each and every day is that he understands the incredible opportunity he has to serve, that he has a servant’s heart and that he leads,” he added.
Bush said the difference between campaigning and governing will be a test for Trump.
“It’s going to be tough. I hope he realizes his words have big consequences,” he said. “There are a lot of people counting on the restoration of economic lift.”
Bush has even found reason to sound cautiously optimistic.
“He’s appointed some really solid, committed conservatives to his cabinet and for that I’m very grateful,” Bush said. “Our economy has lagged behind because of over regulation and I think his appointments suggest that he’s serious about draining the swamp. So I’m excited about that.”
Bush also said he looks forward to a better healthcare system.
“Obamacare will be repealed, but this is somewhat a question of semantics. You can’t repeal it completely,” Bush said, adding that parts of Obamacare will remain in any new healthcare system. “My guess is this is going to take a few years, so you’ll see, hopefully, something that takes the power out of Washington and empower people to make these decisions.” (For more from the author of “Jeb Bush Expresses Doubt Over Russian Influence in Presidential Election” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/16687850955_858483d8a7_b-1.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-12-14 23:11:442016-12-14 23:11:44Jeb Bush Expresses Doubt Over Russian Influence in Presidential Election
When asked who he will vote for in the November presidential election, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has intimated on several occasions that he may cast his vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
At a luncheon hosted by the Manhattan Institute on Wednesday, Bush suggested he may choose Johnson over Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
A source at the luncheon told the New York Daily News, “There was an old man talking to Jeb across the table and said, ‘I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary and Trump,’ and Jeb looked at him and mouthed the word ‘Johnson,’ silently.”
During his speech at the event, Bush reportedly made a comment referring to Johnson as the president.
According to a source, Bush jokingly said, “If I did get a call several weeks after the election, what would I tell President Johnson — I mean, President whoever.”
In an email to the Daily News, Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for Bush, made it clear he had not chosen a candidate to support.
“Nothing has changed since the Governor wrote [a Washington Post] op-ed a couple months ago saying he couldn’t support Hillary or Trump. He has said he would consider voting for the Libertarian ticket. No decision/update though,” Campbell wrote.
Johnson, who according to the latest Real Clear Politics analysis is drawing about 7 percent support in the most recent presidential polls, has been in the news recently for his responses to questions on foreign issues.
The former governor of New Mexico recently appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” where he was asked, “What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo?”
Johnson responded, “And what is Aleppo?”
The host asked if he was joking to which Johnson answered, “No.”
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Wednesday, Johnson was asked to name his favorite foreign leader.
Johnson wanted to name the former Mexican President Vicente Fox, but was unable to grasp the name.
“I guess I’m having an Aleppo moment,” Johnson told Matthews. (For more from the author of “Did Jeb Bush Just Let Slip Who He’s Voting for in Presidential Election?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/16687850955_858483d8a7_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-30 00:49:172016-10-02 16:24:28Did Jeb Bush Just Let Slip Who He’s Voting for in Presidential Election?
In his first interview since dropping out of the 2016 race for the White House, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday that Republican candidate Ted Cruz’s unconventional decision to name Carly Fiorina as his running mate was a “smart move.”
“I’m impressed with her,” he said. “[I] thought it was a smart move.”
Bush, who has endorsed Cruz, told CNN reporter Jamie Gangel that choosing Fiorina, who suspended her bid for the GOP nomination in February, will prove helpful when going after Republican rival Donald Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
“Picking a candidate that is talented, tough — she takes on Trump really well, I think, and she takes on Hillary Clinton very well, as well,” Bush said. “[She’s] someone who’s got a proven record, who’s been vetted by a candidate, I thought it was a smart move.”
Though the invincibility of a Trump nomination continues to build, Bush seemed confident it is still possible to block the billionaire businessman from becoming the GOP nominee. (Read more from “Jeb Bush: Cruz Naming Fiorina Early as Running Mate Is a ‘Smart Move'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Jeb_Bush_8570145056.jpg8531280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-04-29 02:05:262016-04-29 02:05:26Jeb Bush: Cruz Naming Fiorina Early as Running Mate Is a ‘Smart Move’
Radio host Rush Limbaugh warned his millions of listeners on Tuesday that members of the Republican establishment have a blueprint for foisting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on the American people despite his disastrous campaign.
Donald Trump is well on his way to winning the 1,237 delegates needed to becoming the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, but Limbaugh said a liberal reading of the convention committee rules may allow GOP insiders to deny the billionaire his due. He cited a Daily Caller article published Sunday that said first-ballot delegates are not bound to vote for the candidate that won their state’s primaries.
“I’m just telling you, if they succeed in this, if they deny Trump or Ted Cruz 1,237 delegates by the end of the primary process, I’m here to tell you Jeb Bush is gonna be the nominee. That’s what they’re gonna do. That’s what they’ve always wanted,” said Limbaugh. “Jeb himself said back on Dec. 14, 2014, when this whole process started, Jeb said that his strategy was to lose the primaries and win the nomination. And everybody said, ‘What? How you gonna do that?’”
The conservative icon said Ohio Gov. John Kasich will falsely believe he will be picked to sideline Trump if he can win his home state.
“If not Jeb, they’ll go Romney.” said Limbaugh.”The GOP is throwing every egg in its basket in Ohio today. They’re saying that the future of the party is in Ohio today. The future of the GOP hangs in Ohio. What that means is Kasich’s gotta win Ohio. If Kasich wins Ohio, the establishment is still alive, and that way they can engineer a contested convention where they run, that they can then install whoever they want.” (Read more from “Jeb’s Revenge? Rush Outlines Establishment’s Anti-Trump Plot” HERE)
By Jonathan Swan. Jeb Bush campaign officials and a top fundraiser are pushing back aggressively against a story by conservative talk show host Erick Erickson in which he claims that the Bush campaign will stop paying staff on Saturday due to lack of funds.
Citing “sources close to the Bush campaign,” Erickson wrote that there was a phone call on Wednesday night in which the news leaked out that the Bush campaign was out of cash.
After Erickson’s story reverberated through the political world on Thursday morning, Bush campaign spokesman Tim Miller tweeted:
There was no staff call. Desperate fake leak by Marco 2 press bc his ballot stalled. Internals have Jeb/Cruz/Marco MOE. Raised sig $ this wk
Al Cardenas, a longtime Bush insider and senior fundraiser, told The Hill — with his tongue firmly planted in cheek — that he was amazed that “Erick has better information than I do.”
“I am traveling on Saturday to Nevada to help oversee that effort, and we have staff waiting for me,” Cardenas said in a telephone interview. “And nobody’s been notified about this information. (Read more from “Bush Campaign Ridicules Story That It’s out of Cash” HERE)
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Supporters to Jeb: The Donald’s in Your Head
By David Catanese. Jeb Bush supporters think their presidential candidate has been thrown off his optimistic tone by the rancorous bullying of Donald Trump.
And they’re telling him that to his face.
During a midday campaign stop at a country club here Wednesday, Bush was confronted at least three times by seemingly benevolent backers who critiqued his message and offered candid advice about how to right the course.
“I’m afraid that your message doesn’t resonate to the national community,” said Edward Scott, a Maryland resident who was traveling in the Palmetto State for work and supports Bush. (Read more from “Supporters to Jeb: The Donald’s in Your Head” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/20772958225_58672c5984_k.jpg13652048Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-18 22:59:242016-04-11 10:52:30Bush Campaign Ridicules Story That It’s out of Cash
Not that I know what the word really means, but because we spent an entire week discussing this Yiddish slang word uttered by Donald Trump, it evidently connotes what happened during last night’s debate.
For the past 7 months, everyone has been saying that Donald Trump has finally met his demise, only to be proven spectacularly wrong. The reason they were wrong time and time again is simple: the other candidates and the moderators always attacked Trump from the left, particularly on immigration. Instead of hurting him, it always fueled Trump’s appeal. Americans are tired of being lectured to on the issue of immigration, and Trump was speaking to where most voters are at this point.
But as I noted earlier this week, nobody has really attacked Trump from the right and exposed his lack of command of both the Constitution and conservative values. Cruz finally did that last night and Trump was left sputtering. He was lacking any good come-back lines for the first time in the race. He was diminished to defending New York values. Cruz turned the tables on him by looking like the macho, anti-PC crusader, while Trump went all emotional with his non-sequitur about 9/11. He was also caught promoting a left-wing law professor. Trump even used the “on the soil” argument for citizenship which ironically is the left-wing version of birthright citizenship that is used to justify anchor babies – the very issue through which Trump gained initial prominence for opposing. He played into Cruz’s caricature of him perfectly.
Had the debate ended here, it wouldn’t surprise me if Cruz went on to catch Trump in the national polls. And I still believe, on net, Cruz will benefit more than anybody else. But Trump came roaring back in the second half of the debate. Much like the earlier debates, Trump got asked questions about immigration and was delivered the gift that keeps giving – the straw man of Jeb Bush attacking him from the left on the issue. Between immigration, trade, and the presentation of his business career, Trump resurrected the version of himself that much of the voters clearly have come to love.
The only problem for Trump, however, is that many people watched only the first half of the debate. Moreover, his opponent is not Jeb Bush. Bush is irrelevant at this point in the race. His opponent is Cruz, and many Trump supporters will now see a viable alternative who is speaking to their anger.
The challenge for Trump headed out of this debate is to keep up the persona he exhibited in the second hour and stay on message as a conservative, especially on the issue of immigration. But if he is going to continue to make his closing argument about being insulted by Cruz’s taunt of “New York values,” he’s making a colossal mistake. Some of the elite conservative media might feel insulted by Cruz’s comments, but they need to learn that the center of gravity for conservative voters is in the South and the West, and very much anchored in rural culture. There are very few primary voters who will agree with Trump on this exchange. He is needlessly allowing Cruz to get to his “right” and paint him as a Manhattan liberal.
On another note, the true winner of the debate is Maria Bartiromo. Who would have thought we’d live to see a time when a moderator would actually ask the questions about Muslim immigration (100,000 green cards a year) and the broad question of mass migration. Jeff Sessions loomed large at the debate.
Unfortunately, all of the candidates dodged the question in some manner. They all seemed to feel comfortable parlaying the issue exclusively into national security and the question of “vetting” but refused to discuss the general cultural problems with mass migration and the influx of Sharia-adherent immigrants, in particular. This is about a lot more than ISIS. We’ve had the cultural and security concerns that arise from mass migration and the radicalization of Muslim immigrants long before 2013.
The moderators also deserve credit for finally discussing the rise in crime. Once again, this was a missed opportunity for several of the candidates to bring up the get-out-of-jail free agenda and distinguish themselves from the Washington group think on criminal justice.
On a final note, the conservative media will make a big deal of Marco Rubio, but ultimately he is still not speaking to where voters’ hearts lie at this juncture. And worse for him, Chris Christie continues to gain prominence and this debate will only continue the perfect establishment chaos that is preventing Rubio from making this a three-man race.
On net, this debate will only secure the status quo as a two-man race, albeit Cruz will likely gain on Trump in the coming days. (For more from the author of “Cruz Schlongs Trump, Trump Schlongs Jeb” please click HERE)
The Jeb Bush who snarked at Marco Rubio in last week’s Boulder debate and the Jeb Bush who attempted to restart his campaign with a new attitude in Tampa Monday were two different men. One jabbed at a friend-turned-rival — “What is it, like, a French work week?” — while the other pledged a higher road: “I will be true to myself — optimistic and inclusive.”
In Tampa, seeking to re-boot a deeply troubled campaign, Bush pledged to be himself. “I can’t be something I’m not,” Bush told the crowd, saying it was a lesson he had learned during his years as Florida’s governor.
Bush went on to suggest that he has been over-coached and over-advised in recent weeks — and to concede, without saying so, that perhaps he has listened to too much of that advice.
He did it in a roundabout way. Discussing Abraham Lincoln as a president who “held the nation’s highest office with humility,” Bush envisioned Lincoln running for office in today’s political circus.
“Imagine the foolishness he would have to suffer,” Bush said. “Think about it. Advisers telling him to shave his beard. Cable pundits telling him to lose the top hat. Opposition researchers calling him a five-time loser before he was 50.” (Read more from “In Restart, This Is Who Jeb Bush Blames for His Campaign Fail” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-03 00:10:552016-04-11 10:56:38In Restart, This Is Who Jeb Bush Blames for His Campaign Fail
By Daniel Strauss. The feud between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks escalated on Sunday as Trump argued that his hard-line stance on immigration would have prevented the attacks while Bush defended his brother’s handling of them.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked Trump what he would have done differently in response to an earlier suggestion that then-President George W. Bush was partially at fault for the attacks. And Trump insisted he is not blaming the former president for them.
“Jeb [Bush] said ‘We were safe with my brother. We were safe.’ Well, the World Trade Center just went down. Now, am I trying to blame him? I’m not blaming anybody, but the World Trade Center came down, so when he said we were safe, we were not safe. We lost 3,000 people. It was one of the greatest — probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country,” the Republican presidential hopeful said.
If he were president, Trump said, it would have been different.
“I am extremely, extremely tough on people coming into this country,” Trump said. And if he were president then, he said, he doubted “those people would’ve been in the country. … There’s a good chance that those people would not have been in the country. (Read more from “Trump-Bush Feud Fires up Over 9/11” HERE)
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GOP Vet: Trump Win Looking More and More Likely
By Byron York. “I’ve resisted the idea that Donald Trump could and would become the Republican nominee,” writes GOP strategist Alex Castellanos in an email assessment of the presidential race. “Unhappily, I’ve changed my mind.”
Castellanos, who once said flatly that “Trump is not going to be the nominee,” writes “the odds of Trump’s success have increased and been validated in the past few weeks.”
The key indicator, Castellanos says, is the fact that Trump dipped in the polls and now appears to be rising again. “In my experience, that tells us something important,” Castellanos explains:
Republican voters went through a period of doubt about Trump, an understandable window of buyer’s remorse. They went shopping for someone else — but returned, finding no acceptable alternative who could match Trump’s bad-boy strength and his capacity to bring indispensable change. … Fearing they have only one last chance to rescue their country, they found no one else as big as their problem.
(Read more from “GOP Vet: Trump Win Looking More and More Likely” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-18 23:33:552016-04-11 10:57:12Trump-Bush Feud Fires up Over 9/11
Thursday is October 1. Republican caucus and primary voters begin voting the first of February. Jeb Bush has suffered a big decline in the polls, losing, by the count of Wall Street Journal pollsters, 2/3 of his support nationally since June. (He was at 22 percent in that month’s Journal poll and seven percent in a new survey released Sunday.) Other polls show significant decline.
Donald Trump may be slipping, but he is still at the top of the GOP polls, with Ben Carson close, and both are ahead of Bush. Now Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina are ahead of Bush, as well. The former Florida governor’s fundraisers are reportedly growing nervous at his lack of progress, hinting they may take their support to someone else if Bush doesn’t do better soon.
So what is Team Bush’s response? To project a sense of calm and imperturbability in the face of bad news. “The race is completely fluid — look at all the moving parts to date,” said close Bush aide Sally Bradshaw in an email exchange Sunday. “We don’t spend a lot of time worried about who is President of 2015.”
“The campaign is confident that a steady approach will yield results — that has been our plan from day one,” Bradshaw continued. “It has not changed. The more people learn about Jeb’s record as governor through our messaging, the more likely they will be to support the most committed conservative governor in the race — with a record of reform and results.”
Another aide at the highest level of the Bush campaign — Mike Murphy, who runs the Bush Right to Rise Super PAC — also addressed the issue Sunday. When I tweeted, “WSJ poll: Jeb support 1/3 what it was in June. Then: 22%. Now: 7%,” Murphy responded: “Early national polls are totally meaningless.” (Read more from “Bush: Don’t Worry, It’s Still Early, and We’ve Got Lots of Money” HERE)
In his first interview since dropping out of the 2016 race for the White House, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday that Republican candidate Ted Cruz’s unconventional decision to name Carly Fiorina as his running mate was a “smart move.”
