Bush takes veiled swipe at Trump

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Former US President George W. Bush decried “bullying and prejudice” while defending immigrants and trade on Thursday in a New York speech that appeared to be a sweeping, thinly veiled critique of President Donald Trump.

Bush, 71, used a rare public address to discuss nationalism, racial divisions and Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election, all flashpoints of his fellow Republican’s nine-month White House tenure. He did not mention Trump by name.

“Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children. The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them,” Bush said at the Bush Institute’s National Forum on Freedom, Free Markets and Security.

Superintendent Lt Gen Robert Caslen Jr. and former U.S. President George W. Bush watch the cadet corp as the former President is honored with the Sylvanus Thayer Award at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, US, October 19, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Trump has used nicknames to demean opponents, such as “Crooked Hillary” for Democrat Hillary Clinton and, more recently, “Liddle” Bob Corker for a Republican senator who dared to challenge him.

Bush, president from 2001 to 2009, emphasized the important role of immigrants and of international trade, two policy areas that Trump has cracked down on while in office.

“We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism, forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America,” Bush said.

“We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade, forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.”

Former U.S. President George W. Bush watches the cadet corp as he is honored with the Sylvanus Thayer Award at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, US, October 19, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Asked whether the speech was aimed at Trump, a spokesman for Bush said the long-planned remarks echoed themes the 43rd president had discussed for years.

“The themes President Bush spoke about today are really the same themes he has spoken about for the last two decades,” said Bush spokesman Freddy Ford.

Bush touted US alliances abroad, something Trump has called into question, and he denounced white supremacy, which critics accused Trump of failing to do quickly and explicitly earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Trump kicked off the furore early this week by falsely claiming that Barack Obama and other former US leaders did not call the families of fallen soldiers.

He returned to the subject in an interview with Fox News radio and brought up White House chief of staff Kelly, whose son, a Marine Corps lieutenant, was killed by a landmine in Afghanistan in 2010.

"You could ask General Kelly 'Did he get a call from Obama?'" Trump said.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly speaks during a daily briefing at the White House in Washington, US‍, October 19, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Kelly made an emotive defense of Trump Thursday saying he had advised Trump not to call the families of four servicemen killed in Niger personally, but was disgusted by how the issue had become politicized.

He blamed the Democratic lawmaker who made public the contents of a call between Trump and widow Myeshia Johnson.

"I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning and brokenhearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing," he said.

"A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife," he said.

"Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred.

"The only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go and walk among the finest men and women on this Earth. And you can always find them. Because they're in Arlington National Cemetery."

Kelly said he "went over there for an hour and a half, walked among the stones, some of whom I put there because they were doing what I told them to do when they were killed."

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters