To say that the Trump presidency has been marked by turmoil would be an understatement. The president has picked up scandal after scandal, covering issues from Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to his and his associates’ personal finances. Through it all, it’s not even as though Trump has acted sorrowfully and tried to “correct” his course; instead, he’s remained belligerent, hurling calls of fake news left and right.
In light of these facts, George W. Bush, our most recent Republican commander-in-chief, has reportedly taken to quipping that the Trump presidency makes his own scandal and controversy plagued presidency “look pretty good.”
According to the National Journal, Bush “often” remarks of Trump and his scandal-filled presidency:
‘Sorta makes me look pretty good, doesn’t it?’
According to a Republican official aligned with the Trump administration, Bush is not impressed with the belligerent businessman Donald Trump’s job performance. Such puts him, of course, in good company, seeing as the president’s approval rating is currently at only about 40 percent, according to the average of polls maintained by RealClearPolitics.
The Republican official speaking to the National Journal commented of Bush:
‘He’s shaking his head like everyone else wondering why they can’t get their act together. He wants the guy to succeed but thinks a lot of his problems are self-inflicted.’
Bush 43 on Trump: “Sorta makes me look pretty good, doesn’t it?” – per @nationaljournal‘s Tom DeFrank pic.twitter.com/X0KBDdDQdw
— National Journal (@nationaljournal) March 6, 2018
That’s certainly an on-point assessment. It’s not as though someone besides Donald Trump himself personally posts the president’s endless stream of incendiary tweets, for instance. Among other flubs, it’s Trump who has called the leader of the North Korean regime “Rocket Man” and threatened to blow North Korea off the map, not anyone else.
It’s Trump who has dug himself into a hole in the case of the Russia investigation, since instead of cooperating as would seem fitting if he’s as innocent as he claims to be, he’s continually sought to obstruct the investigation.
It would be hard to even blame pretty much anyone else for the president’s problems considering the remarkably high senior staff turnover rate inside the Trump administration, which most recently claimed longtime Trump adviser and White House communications director Hope Hicks.
In the face of these facts, it’s not hard to see what brought Bush to his present position.
Although George W. Bush has resisted being explicit and vocal in his criticisms of Trump, neither he nor his father, George H.W. Bush, voted for Trump, and neither of them attended the 2016 Republican National Convention where Trump was officially nominated either. George W. Bush’s brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, was at one point considered a front runner for the Republican presidential nomination — and then Donald Trump showed up on the scene.
Jeb Bush is one of many Trump opponents to have received a nickname from the businessman turned president, with Trump having referred to him as “Low Energy Jeb.”
In the end, with or without the support of the most recently ruling Republican family, Trump was elected, although that was because of a curious electoral fluke that’s well known by now. Although Hillary Clinton finished with more votes overall, Trump won enough densely populated areas — with the help of restrictive voting laws — to finish with a lead in the electoral college.
Featured Image via Mike Theiler-Pool/ Getty Images
