Jeb Bush says Trump is "Republican in basically name only"
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, has some thoughts on President Trump and the future of the GOP. But at a speech at Yale on Tuesday, he also joked that he wasn't ready to talk about his campaign.
"I'm not going to talk about the 2016 election," Bush said at an event sponsored by the The William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale, according to the Yale Daily News. "I'm still in therapy."
But Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush and brother of former President George W. Bush, did manage to say that Mr. Trump is a "Republican in basically name only," according to the paper.
"If there was ever need for a Bill Buckley-like approach, to transforming conservatism in this country, it is right now," Bush said in a reference to "National Review" founder and Yale graduate William F. Buckley.
"Maybe not a 19th-century or a 20th-century version of conservatism but certainly a 21st-century version of that. And sadly the fracturing of the conservative movement could not come at a worse time."
Bush also advocated for immigration reform and greater fiscal responsibility with an eye to modernizing the GOP.
"The 21st-century conservative agenda cannot be nostalgic about the past," Bush said.
In an apparent dig at Mr. Trump, Bush also said that he returned to his family after losing the South Carolina, saying that his children "actually love me." The remark prompted Donald Trump Jr. to take a shot at Bush.
"Jeb! I love everything about my father. I love that he's a fighter, I love that he has guts, I love that he's President (all those things you're not)," Trump Jr. tweeted on Wednesday.
