Jeb Bush said Thursday that his father was attempting to “create a different narrative” surrounding former President George W. Bush with a new biography that’s grabbing headlines.
“My brother is a big boy, his administration was shaped by his thinking, his reaction to the attack on 9/11,” Jeb Bush, a Republican presidential candidate, told NBC News.
{mosads}”I think my dad, like a lot of people that love George [W. Bush], want to try to create a different narrative, perhaps, just because that’s natural to do,” he added.
Comments from former President George H.W. Bush, 91, for a forthcoming biography have made waves based on his criticism of key figures from the George W. Bush administration. George H.W. Bush went after former Vice President Dick Cheney as an “iron-ass” and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as “arrogant,” according to The New York Times.
George W. Bush offered a conciliatory statement praising Cheney and Rumsfeld, the latter of whom issued a statement to NBC News saying “Bush 41 is getting up in years.”
The highly publicized remarks come as Jeb Bush is focused on jumpstarting his 2016 presidential campaign, which has been lagging in polls three months before early voting.
Jeb Bush told NBC that Cheney “served my brother well as vice president, and he served my dad extraordinarily well as secretary of Defense.”
“Looking forward, I think there are lessons to be learned from both those [Bush] presidencies and the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton,” Jeb Bush said.