George W. Bush will NOT endorse Joe Biden, his spokesman says
George W. Bush will NOT endorse Joe Biden, his spokesman says amid mounting speculation he will follow dozens of former aides to campaign against Donald Trump
- Former Republican President George W. Bush will not explicitly endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president
- ‘We’ve been quite clear and consistent – President Bush is retired from presidential politics and will not be weighing in,’ a Bush spokesman said
- There’s been speculation after the way President Donald Trump treated Jeb Bush in the 2016 primary that the Bushes could endorse Biden, Trump’s rival
By Nikki Schwab, Senior U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com
Published: 13:12 EDT, 25 August 2020 | Updated: 13:14 EDT, 25 August 2020
Former President George W. Bush will not explicitly endorse Joe Biden despite a number of more traditional Republicans crossing the aisle to back the Democrat in recent days.
‘We’ve been quite clear and consistent – President Bush is retired from presidential politics and will not be weighing in,’ Bush spokesman Freddy Ford told The Hill newspaper, adding ‘it’s not in the cards.’
A spokesman for former President George W. Bush (pictured) said he was ‘retired from presidential politics and will not be weighing in,’ when asked if Bush might walk across the aisle and endorse Democrat Joe Biden
There’s no question that the relationship between Trump and the Bush family is fraught after Trump’s brutal 2016 primary campaign against former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who Trump famously coined as ‘low energy.’
But Biden hasn’t been able to capture the endorsements of any top-tier Republicans or those who are currently in office.
Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ 2012 nominee who voted for one of the articles of impeachment against Trump, stayed silent during last week’s Democratic National Convention when there was similar speculation that he might back Biden.
Cindy McCain, the widow of GOP Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2018 presidential nominee, narrated a video about her late husband’s friendship with Biden, but did not appear on-screen to officially endorse him.
And Bush did pop his head back into national politics last week to endorse Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who’s facing her greatest re-election challenge yet in Maine, after her vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh made her one of the Democrats’ biggest targets.
Collins is facing another woman on the ticket, Democrat Sara Gideon.
The Real Clear Politics polling average currently has Gideon 4.5 points ahead.
The former president and former first lady Laura Bush invited Collins over to lunch at the family’s Kennebunkport, Maine compound Friday, before coming outside and addressing the press to make the endorsement.
Prior to that, The New York Times reported in June, that Bush would not be supporting Trump’s re-election effort – and he’s not slated to speak at this week’s Republican National Convention.
Collins and a number of other endangered GOP senators are also staying away from the four-day Trump affair, which feature appearances from the president every day.
Additionally, a group of Republicans who are either explicitly supporting Biden or simply against Trump, have launched their own shadow convention this week, called the Convention of Founding Principles.
That convention has so far featured speeches from former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, former FBI Director James Comey and former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden, among others.
