After previews from an upcoming biography of former President George H.W. Bush painted Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as poor advisors during his son’s administration, the former defense secretary had a scathing response Thursday.
The senior Bush told biographer Jon Meacham that Rumsfeld “served the President badly” and called him “an arrogant fellow” with an “iron-ass view of everything” in the book, out next week.
Rumsfeld fired back in a statement to NBC News: “Bush 41 is getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own decisions.”
George H.W. didn’t spare his son’s vice president from criticism in the book, saying Cheney became “very hard-line” after the 9/11 terror attacks.
“He just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” Bush 41 says in the book. “His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East.”
This story has been updated.
