If you believed that Donald Trump would start his trip to Asia without having some sort of petty controversy back home, you haven’t paid much attention to every week for the past year. While his comments about Presidents Obama and Clinton are well known, particular during his campaign for president, he has not taken many shots are former President George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush. The same can’t be said for Jeb Bush, which is likely what sparked the comments from the elder Bush that are now being publicized as part of the book The Last Republicans by Mark K. Updegrove.
Not only is it made clear that neither Bush voted for Trump in the general election — with H.W. Bush voting for Clinton and W. Bush choosing “none of the above.” But that was far from the worst thing the pair said about Trump during their interviews for the book, with the senior Bush possibly dropping the harshest comment in May 2016 according to The New York Times:
“I don’t like him,” Mr. Bush said in May 2016. “I don’t know much about him, but I know he’s a blowhard. And I’m not too excited about him being a leader.” Rather than being motivated by public service, Mr. Bush said Mr. Trump seemed to be driven by “a certain ego.”
The younger Bush, as noted by the Times, was less harsh in his words while carrying the same type of weight, saying Trump didn’t seem to understand the presidency and sharing his fears that he’d “be the last Republican president.” That’s pretty rough, though W was also including Hillary Clinton in that statement. The conclusion places Trump in his doghouse either way, but the reality is that the man is now president. And as president, he can send out responses in official capacity via The White House.
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday after the New York Times story was published, with The White House releasing a statement that called the Iraq War “one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in American history”:
NEW: WH responds to Bush41 calling POTUS a "blowhard". Calls Iraq "greatest foreign policy mistakes in American history". via/ @NoahGrayCNN pic.twitter.com/XQ2f1JK81C
— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) November 4, 2017
Trump himself has yet to tweet on the comments by the former presidents, but the president did just land in Japan earlier on Saturday evening. He hasn’t had the downtime to fire up his phone just yet.
(Via The New York Times)