Bush: Trump would be ‘a chaos president’
Congrats Jeb Bush! #GOPDebate https://t.co/rgWp31GiEw
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) December 16, 2015
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush bashed Donald Trump as a “chaos” candidate as he pushes back on the real estate mogul’s recent call to ban Muslim immigration.
“This is not a serious proposal, it will push the Arab world away from us at a time where we need to engage with them,” the White House hopeful said Tuesday on the main stage of the GOP presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nev.
{mosads}”Donald is great at the one-liners but he is a chaos candidate and he’d be a chaos president. He would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe.”
Trump immediately shot back at Bush for criticizing him, blaming the hostility on Bush’s slide in the polls and brushing aside his opponent’s recent assertion that he’s “unhinged.”
“Jeb doesn’t really believe I’m ‘unhinged,’ he said that very simply because he has failed in this campaign. It has been a total disaster, nobody cares and frankly I’m the most solid person up here,” Trump said to a mixed reaction from the crowd.
But Bush dug in, reiterating his belief that the proposed ban would hurt relations with key allies in the Middle East, echoing argument he’s repeatedly made in an attempt to frame himself as the adult in the room compared to the billionaire businessman.
“It is not a serious proposal to say to the people you are asking for support that they can’t even come to the country to engage in a dialogue with us,” he said.
“That’s not a serious proposal. We need a serious leader to deal with this and I believe I am that guy.”
Trump said his controversial proposals do not isolate people.
“We are not talking about isolation, we’re talking security,” he said. “We’re not talking about religion, we’re talking about security.”
Bush was also asked about whether the words of his brother, former President George W. Bush, who preached tolerance to Muslims in the wake of 9/11, were still relevant in a party where, according to recent polling, a majority of voters agreed with Trump’s policy.
“They are relevant if they want to destroy ISIS, if we want to destroy radical Islamic terrorism, we can’t disassociate ourselves from peace-loving Muslims,” he said, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“If we expect to do this on our own, we will fail, but if we do it in unison with people who are also threatened by Islamic radical terrorism, we will be far more successful.”
Most of the GOP candidates panned Trump’s call to ban Muslims, arguing that it was counterproductive, even despite the recent terror attack in Paris and the attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that is being investigated for ties to terrorism.
– Updated at 9:33 p.m.
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