War Criminal:
George W. Bush on Trump's Policies
Bush Calls for Russia Inquiry in Rare Interview
Former
president George W. Bush took a few thinly
veiled shots at President Donald Trump during an
interview with NBC’s “Today” show.
Ed Note:
Bush Standing on the bodies of over one million
people, (including many in the U.S. military) to
make a dollar selling his book.
Posted
February 27, 2017
"Today"
host Matt Lauer confronted Bush specifically
about Trump's assertion that some news-media
outlets were the "enemy of the people." It was a
rare interview for Bush, who was promoting his
new book, "Portraits of Courage."
Though
Bush qualified that Trump had been in office for
only a few weeks and that the media ecosystem
was far less splintered during his
administration, he emphasized the importance to
democracy of dissenting media voices.
"I
consider the media to be indispensable to
democracy," Bush said. "We need an independent
media to hold people like me to account. I mean
power can be very addictive, and it can be
corrosive, and it's important for the media to
call to account people who abuse their power.
Whether it be here or elsewhere."
Over
six minutes, Bush countered Trump's worldview,
seeming to slightly criticize everything from
Trump's immigration policy to his description of
"American carnage" across the US.
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Asked
about Trump's executive order temporarily
banning entry to the US by people from seven
majority-Muslim countries, Bush seemed to
acknowledge critics' assertion that the ban
discriminated based primarily on religion.
"I
think it's very important for all of us to
recognize one of our great strengths is for all
of us to be able to worship the way they want to
or not worship at all," Bush said. "A bedrock of
our freedom is the right to worship freely. I
understood that right off the bat, Matt, that
this was an ideological conflict and people that
murder the innocent are not religious people.
They want to advance an ideology."
When
asked if he was for the travel ban, Bush added:
"I'm for an immigration policy that's welcome
and that upholds the law."
Though
Trump has only begrudgingly acknowledged that
Russia meddled in the US 2016 election, the
former president was far less hesitant that the
US needed to pursue answers.
Bush
emphasized the need for the US to further
investigate Russia's hacking and leaking of US
internal political documents, saying he trusted
Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican head of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, to investigate
Russia's role in the election.
"We all
need answers," Bush said. "Whether or not a
special prosecutor is the right way or go or
not, you're talking to the wrong guy."
He
added: "That question needs to be answered."
The
former Republican president's opposition to some
of Trump's initial policy decisions came after
months of public and private criticism of Trump
from the former first family.
Neither
Bush nor his father, former President George H.
W. Bush, supported Trump during the 2016
presidential campaign. Trump made rhetorical
attacks on the Bushes a central part of his
primary campaign against Jeb Bush, continuing to
mock the former Florida governor even after he
dropped out of the primary.
