Bush: Trump isn’t conservative enough to win GOP race

by Bradford Richardson - 08/19/15 7:48 PM ET

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump is not authentic enough a conservative to deserve the Republican nomination.

“Mr. Trump doesn’t have a conservative record,” Bush said at a town-hall meeting Wednesday in New Hampshire. “He was a Democrat longer than he was a Republican. He’s given more money to Democrats than he’s given to Republicans.”

“We’re a conservative party, aren’t we, the Republican Party?” Bush asked.

{mosads}He also slammed the billionaire businessman for his support of popular liberal positions in the past, such as a tax on assets and a single-payer healthcare system.

“Even on immigration, the language is pretty vitriolic, for sure, but hundreds of billions of dollars of cost to implement his plans is not a conservative plan,” Bush said, referring to Trump’s recently announced immigration plan, which initial estimates put at $166 billion.

Trump, meanwhile, was holding his own New Hampshire town hall at the same time, 20 miles down the road in Merrimack.

“Because Bush draws so poorly, I figured it would be a good time to draw a crowd,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

“Someone should tell Mr. Trump he will be trying to troll us from an entirely different county,” a Bush spokesman retorted.

Trump leads New Hampshire’s GOP presidential race with 18 percent support, according to a Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll, with Bush in second place with 13 percent.

While Bush was quick to bash Trump, he did offer praise to another GOP primary rival, Carly Fiorina.

“We have some really good men and women — well, one woman, who is much more talented than the other team’s woman,” Bush said, commending Fiorina at the expense of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Fiorina is drawing 9 percent support in New Hampshire, good for fifth place in the Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll.

Tags Carly Fiorina Donald Trump