Barbara Bush Blamed Trump For Heart Attack, Said She’s No Longer Republican

COLLEGE STATION, TX -- OCTOBER 24: Former First Lady Barbara Bush is interviewed for 'The Presidents' Gatekeepers' project about the White House Chiefs of Staff at the Bush Library, October 24, 2011 in College Statio... COLLEGE STATION, TX -- OCTOBER 24: Former First Lady Barbara Bush is interviewed for 'The Presidents' Gatekeepers' project about the White House Chiefs of Staff at the Bush Library, October 24, 2011 in College Station, Texas. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images). MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Back in the 1980s, former first lady Barbara Bush referred to then-real estate mogul Donald Trump as the “real symbol of greed.”

Flash forward to 2016, when Trump was running against her son Jeb Bush for president — and referring to him as “low energy Jeb” — Barbara Bush’s opinion of the Republican frontrunner hadn’t changed much.

According to an excerpt of a new book, “The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty” by Susan Page published in USA Today, Barbara Bush blamed Trump for heart-related hospitalization in June 2016.

“The tumultuous presidential campaign in general and Trump’s ridicule of son Jeb Bush in particular had riled her. ‘Angst,’ she told me,” the excerpt reads.

And President Trump’s eventual presidency did more than impact Barbara Bush’s health. In February 2018, the former first lady — and the matriarch of an entire generation of conservatives — told Page that she no longer considered herself a Republican.

“I’d probably say no today,” she reportedly said.

Read the full excerpt here. 

Latest News
153
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Donald Trump, if you don’t go after Barbara Bush you don’t have a hair on your ass.

  2. Barbara Bush is very old, and just lost her husband of 70 years, so i’m not going to expect any kind of thoughful self reflection on her part.

    But her Husband did play the race card in the Willie Horton attacks to win his presidency, and her son did send out robocalls attacking McCain for having illegitimate colored children, when in fact he had adopted colored children, to win his presidency. So she is on thin ground for attacking Trump for name calling Jeb.

    Still, good for her for recognizing that Trump isn’t just evil, but he now represents the Republican party.

  3. Not getting any older, though. She’s dead.

  4. Barbara Bush died April 17th, 2018.

  5. Pretty sure Barbara Bush along with John McCain that King Dumb Dumb keeps bringing up are both dead.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

147 more replies

Participants

Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for meri Avatar for cervantes Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for squirreltown Avatar for sandyh Avatar for carlosfiance Avatar for liberal Avatar for yskov Avatar for sickneffintired Avatar for stradivarius50t3 Avatar for ottnott Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for dickweed Avatar for fiftygigs Avatar for darrtown Avatar for tena Avatar for georgeh Avatar for birdford Avatar for centralasiaexpat Avatar for dchoubak Avatar for rascal_crone Avatar for dicktater Avatar for kovie

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: