Palm Beach Post
By George Bennett
September 1, 2015
Jeb
Bush slammed Donald Trump on Tuesday as a counterfeit conservative with
unworkable immigration views and said Hillary Clinton should “chill
out” after criticizing
his use of the term “anchor babies.”
A
day after Republican presidential front runner Trump’s campaign
released a video accusing Bush of being soft on illegal immigration,
Bush’s campaign fired back with
an 82-second web video, an inexpensive alternative to buying TV ad
time. The video features clips of Trump through the years praising
Clinton, saying single-payer health care has worked in Canada and
Scotland, calling for “substantially” higher taxes on upper
incomes, describing himself as “very pro-choice” on abortion and saying
he identifies as a Democrat on many issues.
Trump was dismissive.
“Yet
another weak hit by a candidate with a failing campaign. Will Jeb sink
as low in the polls as the others who have gone after me?” Trump said on
his Twitter account.
Bush
on Tuesday met with students at La Progresiva Presbyterian School, a
largely Hispanic private school in Little Havana where a majority of
students benefit from the
Florida Tax Credit Scholarships that Bush initiated while he was
Florida governor from 1999 to 2007.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Bush reiterated the themes in the anti-Trump video.
“While
I was campaigning for Republicans in this state and all across the
country — conservative, reform-minded candidates — he was supporting
Hillary Clinton,” said Bush,
referring to contributions Trump made to Clinton’s 2000 and 2006 New
York Senate campaigns and her 2008 presidential bid.
“This is not a guy who is a conservative,” Bush said.
In
Spanish, Bush accused Trump of personalizing things and calling anyone
he disagrees with an “idiot” or “stupid” or lacking in energy or “blah,
blah, blah.”
Trump has frequently mocked Bush as a “low-energy” candidate.
Trump’s
harsh rhetoric on immigration has propelled him to the top of
Republican polls while establishment favorite Bush has floundered. Trump
has accused Mexico of sending
rapists and other criminals to the U.S., promised a wall between the
countries to be built at Mexico’s expense, called for mass deportations
of people in the country illegally and challenged the 14th Amendment’s
guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the
U.S.
Bush,
who favors a path to legal status — but not full citizenship — for the
estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, accused Trump of
distorting his position
on immigration.
“If
he was interested in actually knowing my views he could read the book
(Bush’s 2013 book “Immigration Wars”) and he would know that I’m for
border security and in a
practical way that won’t cost hundreds of billions of dollars like what
he’s proposed,” Bush told reporters.
Bush
also took heat from Clinton last month after he used the term “anchor
babies” to describe children born in the U.S. to parents who are not
citizens.
“I’m
for birthright citizenship … it’s embedded in the 14th amendment. I
don’t think we’re going to round up 11 million people and put them in
camps to deport them, breaking
up families. I’m for a rational approach to immigration. My record is
clear,” Bush said.
Bush noted that his wife was born in Mexico and he is a longtime bilingual resident of Miami’s cultural melting pot.
“Really,
for Hillary Clinton to lecture me about this, given my personal
experience, the fact that I’ve lived in this beautiful community, that
is a community of immigrants,
the fact that I’m married to a spectacular woman that I’ve been married
to for 41 years. This is like, ‘Chill out, man.’ Let’s just take a deep
breath and recognize that I’ve had a consistent view on these
subjects,” Bush said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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