FAIRFAX, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today in the following statement blasted former President George W. Bush’s attack on President Donald Trump and his supporters:
“Former President George W. Bush remained eerily silent during the Barack Obama administration as his successor drove racial tensions to new heights by demonizing law enforcement. Incredibly, the same President Bush, who I gratefully served as one of his appointees at the Labor Department, seems to not feel as constrained in attacking his Republican successor in the White House. President Bush is wrong on both trade and immigration. He should know better than anyone that the granting of permanent normal trade relations to China in 2000 as well as entering the WTO has had disastrous effects in hollowing out our nation’s manufacturing sector as currency manipulation by the Chinese was a major issue between the two countries during his presidency. He should also know that failure to enforce our nation’s immigration laws has led to the current impasse on how to proceed. Unfortunately, the border wall was authorized prior to President George W. Bush’s administration, and in spite of our heightened national security needs after 9/11, it was never prioritized and completed. This failure by the 43rd President is at least partially responsible for the flood of illegal immigrants who crossed our border at the seeming urging of his immediate successor.
“The sad fact is that President Bush really was attacking the American people who have grown weary of the new normal brought about by the Clinton, Bush, Obama trio. Americans know that our nation can grow and thrive, but only if the economic playing field is not deliberately tipped against them by the very politicians they entrusted to lead America. I am saddened that former President Bush apparently cannot see that putting America First is the President’s job. This seems unfathomable from the man who took the mound at Yankee Stadium shortly after 9/11 to show that America will not be afraid of Islamists or anyone else, an image that does not jibe with his current iteration.
“On a personal level, I am saddened by the choice by President Bush to attack President Trump at a time when the current President is fighting for cutting taxes, rolling back regulations that are strangling our economy, replacing Obamacare, and facing unprecedented nuclear threats from small nation dictators intent on extorting the world. Rather than being a positive, constructive influence, President Bush instead made the case that until Donald Trump came on the scene, the differences between the two political parties were more semantic than real.”
