Differences over President Trump reverberated during a weekend reunion bash for White House alumni of George W. Bush, exposing rifts in the network of Republican operatives and officials.
Matt Schlapp, a lobbyist and enthusiastic Trump supporter who served as political director in the Bush White House, had to be convinced to attend the reunion by a fellow “Bushie,” often a term of scorn in the Trump White House, after he expressed fears of being confronted. Another Bush administration veteran, sometimes critical of Trump and sometimes not, was accosted at the gathering by a former colleague and accused of being too pro-Trump.
Both the Never Trump and pro-Trump factions are outspoken, rarely hesitating to criticize each other despite their shared Bush roots. That was the case as approximately 2,500 of them met for a few days in Washington to reminisce about old times. “There’s been a lot of passion — and tension,” said Schlapp. His wife, Mercedes, also a Bush official, was a senior White House official until recently.
Bush, 73, and Dick Cheney, 78, his vice president, spoke at the reunion but generally steered clear of the disagreements roiling national politics. The party was held Saturday night at The Anthem, a concert venue in Washington.
“I understand the tensions,” added Ron Kaufman, a Republican insider who worked for Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush. Kaufman, who is supportive of Trump, has witnessed the evolution of the family’s political network over three decades.
Among attendees were: Peter Wehner, Bush’s head of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, who is virulently anti-Trump; Tom Bossert, who was Trump’s assistant for Homeland Security; pro-Trump Rep. Liz Cheney; anti-Trump MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, who is no longer a Republican; and Joe Hagin, who was Bush’s deputy chief of staff for operations and then held the same job under Trump.
On Monday morning, anti-Trumpers were buoyed by a trenchant article from Wehner expounding on “Trump’s disordered personality — his extreme narcissism; his addiction to lying … his detachment from reality … his self-aggrandizement and petty cheating.” At around the time it was published, his former Bush administration colleague Alex Azar, who had also attended the reunion, was on his way to work as Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.
Bush veterans such as Schlapp have a hard time understanding the resistance to Trump. The president has delivered on key Republican priorities, and to the extent that his pugilistic populism is unorthodox, it reflects an evolving conservative base and a modern media environment dictated by aggressive social media tactics. Besides, they say, the alternative could be a radically liberal president who makes old school Democratic politics look centrist by comparison.
That does not sit well with prominent Never Trumpers such as Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, who played a key role in the 2000 Bush campaign and wrote an affectionate memoir about his “adventures with the cockeyed optimists from Texas who won the biggest prize in politics.” The veteran of Bush’s presidential campaigns, who is advising Bill Weld’s long-shot primary challenge against Trump, is mystified that any of his brothers-in-arms during the Bush years could support this president.
In comportment, philosophy, and character, Stevens said, Trump represents the opposite of everything Bush stood for. “I find it heartbreaking,” said Stevens. “I find it incredibly heartbreaking.” Via Twitter on Sunday, Stevens, the campaign manager for Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential bid, said that Trump and his family “have no idea what it means to be an American.” On Monday, he referred to Trump as “mush brain” and said that his 2016 campaign “was run by criminals.”
Bush left office in 2009 with low approval ratings amid controversy over the Iraq War and the onset of the recession, both of which snuffed out much of the admiration he earned for his handling of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 in part because he was virtually alone in running against Bush’s leadership of the party.
Central to Trump’s primary victory was his mockery of Bush’s younger brother Jeb as “low energy” and a creature of the political establishment. If Jeb Bush, the early Republican favorite, had won, his White House would have drawn heavily on his brother’s staff, just as George had with their father’s administration.
Regardless of their opinions of Trump, many Republicans who served under Bush hold an abiding appreciation and affection for their old boss and his lieutenant, Cheney. That commonality forged a sense of powerful camaraderie at the reunion, despite the obvious differences created by the alternate political routes this collection of Republicans has traveled since Trump assumed command of the GOP.
Ari Fleischer, Bush’s first press secretary who often praises Trump but is occasionally critical and did not vote for him, hosted a dinner at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Washington with Dana Perino, also a former Bush press secretary, for about 50 former Bush communications aides. Fleischer now runs his own corporate communications firm and is a Fox News contributor. Perino hosts her own show on Fox.
Fleischer insisted the reunion was that unusual Washington event where politics was not the topic of discussion and that there was little talk of Trump. Rather, he said, the dinner he hosted with Perino, and other events he attended, were about family, friendships, and their memories working for a boss they loved.
“He is such an infectiously funny, agreeable good, kind man who can also snap a towel when he wants to,” Fleischer said. “To have worked for him is to love him. He’s just that kind of guy.”
