President Trump said Saturday that he spoke on the phone with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former President George W. Bush to express his condolences following the death of their father.
“We extended our best wishes, and he was a very fine man,” Trump told reporters, referring to former President George H.W. Bush, who died Friday at age 94.
“I met him on numerous occasions. He was just a high quality man who truly loved his family,” Trump said, seated alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“He was a terrific guy, and he will be missed. And he led a full life and very exemplary life, too, I will say,” he said.
Trump canceled an afternoon press conference out of respect for the late president, ordered government flags to staff-staff, and declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday.
“We’ve decided, as you know, we were going to have a big press conference, which I actually look forward to because we’ve made tremendous progress at the G-20 with many nations, and we were going to have a very big press conference, and out of respect to President Bush, we’ve canceled it here, and we’ll have it back in Washington at some time in the near future, sometime after the funeral service,” Trump said.
Trump did not answer a reporter’s question about whether he had any regrets about his comments about Bush, whose famous 1988 “Thousand Points of Light” speech Trump mocked as recently as July.
The president did say, however, that Bush’s death “puts a damper” on a Saturday night dinner between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where the men will discuss an escalating trade war.
“It’s a very important meeting, but again, the fact that we lost a president who truly was a wonderful person, a wonderful man, a great man, it really puts a damper on it, to be honest with you,” Trump said.
