Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fired back at Donald Trump’s comments on Mexicans after a Fourth of July parade in New Hampshire, telling reporters he “absolutely” took offensive at Trump saying rapists are coming across the southern border.
“To make these extraordinarily ugly kind of comments is not reflective of the Republican Party,” said Bush, whose wife, Columba, is Mexican. Bush also speaks Spanish at home.
“He’s doing this — he’s not a stupid guy, so I don’t assume he thinks that every Mexican crossing the border is a rapist. He’s doing this to inflame and incite and to draw attention, which seems to be the organizing principle of his campaign,” Bush continued.
“…Politically, we’re going to win when we’re hopeful and optimistic and big and broad rather than errrrr, grrrr, just angry all the time. This is an exaggerated form of that, and there is no tolerance for it.”
Trump responded with some tweets against Bush and other challengers, such as: “Rick Perry failed at the border. Now he is critical of me. He needs a new pair of glasses to see the crimes committed by illegal immigrants.”
Trump retweets posts he likes from followers using quote marks, as he did here on the Fourth of July. The Week captured a screenshot before it was deleted 24 hours later; here is the original poster’s tweet.
Trump told Fox yesterday that he doesn’t have to apologize for his comments.
“Look, the Mexican border is a sieve. People are pouring through our country — into our country. We don’t know who they are, where they are, they come from all over the world. Not Mexicans. I employ thousands of Mexicans. I’ve employed over the years many thousands of Mexicans,” he said.
“I love the Mexican people. They’re fantastic and everybody knows that. But in terms of the border, it’s a disgrace. Either we have a border or we don’t have a country. You know, you can’t have a country without borders. And people are coming in and some of those people — and I read it even yesterday there was a huge article about the tremendous crime that’s taking place. It’s like a crime wave. It’s one of the most dangerous places on earth. And I bring that up, all of a sudden I’m a bad person.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), twin brother of potential Hillary Clinton running mate Julian Castro, told MSNBC that Trump “opened a Pandora’s box for Republican candidates because Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, even though I’m glad they both have spoken out now, it took them almost three weeks to say anything against Donald Trump.”
“The second thing is that he’s made it harder to have a real conversation about immigration reform that is based on facts and not based on pure raw emotion,” Castro said. “…I think he’s forcing that discussion within the Republican Party and this American conversation. You think about in the media world that we live in now, this story has now outlasted the Confederate flag story, the story on the ObamaCare decision and even the ruling on marriage equality.”
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