Biggest Bush donor to run anti-Trump ad
Jeb Bush’s largest donor has decided to run full-page ads targeting Donald Trump that call the GOP presidential hopeful “a narcissistic BULLYionaire.”
Billionaire Mike Fernandez, who has contributed $3 million to Right to Rise, the main super-PAC supporting Bush’s presidential bid, announced his decision on Friday after a poll showed Trump leading the GOP field with 36 percent support. Bush trails, with just 3 percent.
{mosads}The ad, first reported by Politico, mentions fascist dictators Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Juan Perón before its critique of Trump.
“Mr. Trump portrays himself as someone who can do no wrong, unblemished by almost any human faults — indeed, the paragon of the smartest and greatest,” it says. “But his words and actions tell us who he really is — a destroyer.”
Fernandez, a Cuban immigrant who fled the regime of Fidel Castro when he was 12, said he refused to sit idly by and let Trump further divide America.
“In my home, my country, I cannot stand by and accept demagoguery that would separate us — rich vs. poor, minority vs. majority, red vs. blue,” the ad says.
The full-page ad also compares Trump, unfavorably, with former President Abraham Lincoln, featuring pictures and quotes from each of the men at the top of the page.
While Lincoln extols the virtues of the Declaration of Independence, Trump’s quote reads: “I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”
“Is there any way that Mr. Trump speaks to what Mr. Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature’?” the ad says. “You know the answer.”
Fernandez said he came up with the idea to run the ads without consulting the Bush campaign or Right to Rise. The ads will run in Miami; Des Moines, Iowa; and Las Vegas newspapers.
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