Born the son of a minister, Rep. Jim Clyburn is now being called a “savior” by political opponents for his role in the 2020 presidential election, according to the congressman himself.
Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat whose endorsement helped propel President Biden to victory during the 2020 presidential primary, said that former President George W. Bush gave him the honorific during Biden’s inauguration festivities on Wednesday afternoon.
“You know, you’re the savior because if you had not nominated Joe Biden, we would not be having this transfer of power today,” Clyburn recalled Bush telling him.
Freddy Ford, a Bush spokesman, downplayed the comment.
“Let’s not make this into more than it is,” he wrote on Twitter. “He was saying Clyburn helped saved Biden’s nomination….nothing Biblical here.”
Bush, a Republican, has often been at odds with former President Donald Trump despite their belonging to the same political party. The 43rd president did not vote for Trump or his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 presidential contest. He has not revealed how he voted in 2020.
At the time of Biden’s election, Bush released a statement saying that he had congratulated the then-president-elect on his victory while noting the ideological differences separating the two.
“I just talked to the President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, [and] I extended my warm congratulations [to him],” Bush said. “Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man, who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country. The president-elect reiterated that while he ran as a Democrat, he will govern for all Americans.”
The sense of antipathy between the two former Republican presidents and their inner circles was mutual. Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s eldest son, dismissed Bush’s absence from his father’s nomination convention in August and said, “Who cares?”
“Honestly, I think we’re sort of past that. I think we have to move on. We have to represent the American people. We have to fight for America for a change, not for our friends in D.C., not our buddies that run the military-industrial complex. We have to put an end to that,” he said. “I’m thrilled that those people aren’t here because I don’t think that they represent the party well anymore.”
