Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Sunday cited “grave concerns” over Donald Trump’s ability to serve as president, continuing the high-profile feud between the two Republican presidential candidates and expanding the rift on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and whether they could have been prevented.
Mr. Trump, the GOP’s presidential front-runner, seemed to suggest last week that Mr. Bush’s brother, former President George W. Bush, was at least partly to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks.
While Mr. Trump stressed Sunday that he wasn’t blaming anyone in particular, he did say the nation wasn’t entirely safe during the Bush presidency and tried to use that fact to cast doubt on Jeb Bush’s honesty.
“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,” Mr. Trump said on “Fox News Sunday” before explaining how he would have kept the Sept. 11 hijackers out of the country.
“I am extremely tough on illegal immigration. I’m extremely tough on people coming into this country. I believe if I were running things, I doubt those people would’ve been in the country,” he said. “So there’s a good chance that those people would have been in our country. With that said, I’m not blaming George W. Bush. But I don’t want Jeb Bush to say, ’Our brother kept us safe,’ because Sept. 11 is one of the worst days in the history of the country.”
(According to the 9/11 Commission that investigated the attacks, the 19 hijackers were in the country legally — 18 under six-month tourist or business visas, one under a student visa.)
Mr. Bush quickly fired back, saying Mr. Trump’s comments prove that he simply should not be commander in chief.
“I have grave doubts, to be honest with you. And it’s only because of the things he says. It looks as though he doesn’t — he’s not taking the responsibility, the possibility of being president of the United States really seriously.” Mr. Bush said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “For him, it looks as though he’s an actor playing a role of the candidate for president. Not boning up on the issues, not having a broad sense of the responsibilities of what it is to be a president.”
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who comes in at No. 2 in Republican primary polling, said he has questions about Mr. Trump’s comments but does not believe he was blaming former President Bush for Sept. 11.
“I would probably ask him what he meant by that. I seriously doubt that he’s saying that George W. Bush is to blame for it,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I certainly don’t think so.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.