Ex-chief of staff touts George H.W. Bush’s efforts to promote diversity

The chief of staff to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush touted the former leader’s efforts to promote diversity during his tenure as vice president and president in an interview on Monday. 

“He surrounded himself with people from all walks of life, with people of diversity, and with women and minorities,” Craig Fuller told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons and Buck Sexton on “Rising.” “That’s who he was, and that’s who he’d been.” 

Fuller was responding to a comment from Simmons, who noted the controversial “Willie Horton ad” that ran during Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign against then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis (R). 

The ad was run by an outside group, not Bush’s campaign. 

“To your point, the difference is the minute we heard about it, we said ‘it’s wrong, we want it off the air. If we have any ability to do anything, get it off the air. It’s not who we are, it’s not what we stand for, it’s not what we believe in,’ ” he said. “That’s who George Bush was.” 

“I can say it with certainty: He never would have approved an ad that had the repercussions that the Horton ad had,” he continued. 

— Julia Manchester