Jeb Bush believes the Republican Party is “fractured,” and says the entire political system is “cracking up,” an apparent reference to the success that outsider candidates are having in the 2016 presidential election.
“We are fractured ideologically,” he told Politico. “We’re fractured in terms of tone. We’re no different than the … It’s the political system that is cracking up. I don’t know what the form [is] that it takes going forward.”
The outsider sentiment that made the rise of Donald Trump possible has been particularly damaging for Bush, who was favored to win the GOP nomination until Trump announced a run. Bush implied that Trump exacerbates divisions within the party, but he maintained that the party could still unify in time for a general election victory.
“[A]t some point, we have a nominee, and there will be unity around that nominee because I think Republicans, in all of our hyphenated forms, conservatives want to win,” he said.
Bush has aggressively attacked Trump, but also criticized Sen. Marco Rubio for failing to attack Trump in the same way. “It’s all a tactic for him, and I think principle matters,” Bush said.
Bush may have his own reasons for attacking Rubio, however. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who endorsed Bush, said last week that “If Rubio beats him badly in New Hampshire, Jeb is toast.” Such a defeat would have Bush facing pressure from his own donors to drop out in order to allow the establishment to consolidate behind a single candidate in an attempt to stop Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Bush suggested that Rubio lacks political courage, most pointedly when it comes to the Gang of Eight immigration bill that Rubio helped write but then abandoned.
“The immigration deal was he made a decision: ‘My personal ambition trumps doing my job,’ in essence, which he was the catalyst to get done,” Bush said. “So, do you want someone whose natural tendency is to pursue ambition, or do you want someone who runs to the fire?”
