Trump on Barbara Bush: 'Look What I Did to Her Sons'

He fires back at remarks in her biography
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 5, 2019 2:48 AM CDT
Updated Apr 5, 2019 6:47 AM CDT
Trump Fires Back at Barbara Bush Criticism
This April 18, 2009 photo shows former first lady Barbara Bush during the third inning of a Major League Baseball game in Houston.   (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

President Trump has fired back at Barbara Bush's criticism of him in a new biography, saying he knows why she didn't like him. "I have heard that she was nasty to me, but she should be. Look what I did to her sons," he tells the Washington Times. In The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty, the former first lady blamed Trump's mockery of son Jeb Bush during the 2016 GOP primary campaign for her heart problems. "Look, she's the mother of somebody that I competed against," Trump says. "Most people thought he was going to win and he was quickly out." During the campaign, Trump mocked Jeb Bush as "low energy" and also strongly criticized George W. Bush.

"I hit him very hard in South Carolina," Trump says of Jeb Bush. "Remember? He was supposed to win South Carolina and I won it in a landslide. I hit him so hard." In The Matriarch, author Susan Page wrote that Barbara Bush was horrified when Trump won the 2016 election, and had disliked him since the early '90s, when she wrote in her diary: "Trump now means greed, selfishness, and ugly. So sad." The Washington Post notes that the Bush sons have largely refrained from directly criticizing Trump, though George W. Bush, when discussing the presidency last week, said: "I understand a lot of people are concerned right now." (More Barbara Bush stories.)

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