Donald Trump accused President Bush of lying about weapons of mass destruction to launch the war in Iraq, escalating his battle with Bush’s brother Jeb as the campaign got brutal and personal in South Carolina.
“I want to tell you: they lied,” Trump said during the Republican debate.
That statement marked an emphatic conclusion to an answer that began with Trump dodging the question of whether he stood by his 2008 statement that Bush should have been impeached for going to war in Iraq. And it provoked an emotional response from Jeb Bush.
“I am sick and tired of him going after my family,” the former Florida governor said. “When Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building the security apparatus that kept us safe.”
Though Jeb tried to distance himself from his family name early on in the campaign, he has since come to embrace his background, and his brother, former President Bush, is set to hit the trail for Jeb for the first time next week.
Trump has consistently made Jeb a target of his abuse throughout the campaign, but took things to a new level on Saturday.
Initially, Trump gave a more forgiving assessment of Bush. “Obviously, George Bush made a mistake,” Trump said when asked about his 2008 comments. “We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty, we should have never been in Iraq.”
When pressed, though, Trump maintained that Bush invented a reason to go to war.
“They said there were weapons of mass destruction,” he said, his voice rising in anger. “There were none and they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”
That provoked an emotional response from Jeb Bush, in addition to boos from the audience. “When Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building the security apparatus that kept us safe,” the former Florida governor said.
Bush faulted Trump for an array of other comments, as well “I am sick and tired of him going after my family,” the former Florida governor replied. “He has had the gall to go after my mother … My mom is the strongest woman I know.”
“She should be running,” Trump jibed.
Trump then countered that President Bush didn’t keep the country safe because Sept. 11 happened on his watch.
