Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush have traded rhetorical punches before, but never as forcefully as they have over the past 24 hours. Consider:
On Monday, Trump’s campaign unveiled a video attacking Bush’s past comment calling illegal immigration “an act of love” – by highlighting three undocumented immigrants who have committed murder.
Tuesday morning, the Bush campaign responded in kind – with its own video underscoring Trump’s past liberal-leaning positions on abortion and health care.
And while campaigning in his hometown of Miami, Bush doubled down on his campaign’s video. “This is not a guy who’s a conservative and using his own words is not a mischaracterization, they came from his own mouth,” Bush said on Trump.
And speaking in Spanish, he added (translated into English): "He’s not conservative. He doesn’t have a career that you could say is conservative," Bush said, according to the Washington Post. "And beyond that, he personalizes everything. If you’re not totally in agreement with him, you’re an idiot, or stupid, or you don’t have energy or 'blah blah blah.' That’s what he does. That doesn’t work – there are millions of people who today are thinking that their future isn't the way it should be."
Trump later fired back at Bush on Twitter:
