In an upcoming biography about former First Lady Barbara Bush, Bush blames her heart attack on President Donald Trump and says her dislike of him started as early as 1990.
The biography, “The Matriarch,” authored by USA Today’s Washington Bureau Chief, Susan Page, will be released next week.
Page extensively interviewed Bush during the final months of her life.
Bush passed away last April at the age of 92. Her husband President George H. W. Bush passed away in November at the age of 94.
Bush found issue with Trump as early as 1990, when she called him “the real symbol of greed in the 80s” in her diary entries, reported USA Today. In 1992, referring to Trump and his ex-wife Ivana, Bush wrote “Trump now means greed, selfishness and ugly. So sad.”
Bush even blamed Trump for her heart attack. USA Today reported:
It wasn’t technically a heart attack, though she called it that. It was a crisis in her long battle with congestive heart failure and chronic pulmonary disease that hit her like a sledgehammer one day in June 2016. An ambulance was called to take her to the hospital. The two former presidents who had been at home with her that day, her husband and her oldest son, trailed in a car driven by the Secret Service. The tumultuous presidential campaign in general and Trump’s ridicule of son Jeb Bush in particular had riled her. “Angst,” she told me.
During the 2016 election, Trump constantly took aim at her son Jeb Bush on the debate stage and in the media, dubbing him, “Low-Energy Jeb.”
Bush campaigned for her son after he lost the opening caucuses in Iowa and was fighting for support in New Hampshire. In a campaign video, she took a swipe at Trump. “Jeb has real solutions,” Bush said. “Rather than talking about how popular they are, how great they are, he’s doing it because he sees huge need and it’s not being filled by anybody. Of all the people running he seems to be the one who can solve the problems.”
In response, Trump’s campaign mocked Jeb, posting a video that said: “Are we sure it was only 40 years ago?”
Trump also criticized Jeb for having his mother campaign for him:
“Just watched Jeb’s ad where he desperately needed mommy to help him,” Trump tweeted. “Jeb — mom cannot help you with ISIS, the Chinese or with Putin.”
After Jeb dropped out, he reportedly encouraged his mom to move on. “Jeb said, ‘Mom, don’t worry about things you can’t do anything about,'” Barbara Bush recalled to Page. “He’s right. Just do good, make life better for someone else.”
Bush said her husband voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but she wrote in Jeb’s name, and reportedly wrote in her diary, “I could not vote for Trump or Clinton.”
In a letter to First Lady Melania Trump, Bush joked about the possibility of the letter going to President Bill Clinton if Hillary had won.
“Dear Mrs. Trump, The world thought I was writing this note to Bill Clinton. I am glad that I am not. I wanted to welcome you to the very exclusive First Ladies club,” Bush reportedly wrote. “My children were older and, therefore, I did not have the problems you do. Whatever you decide to do is your business and yours alone. Living in the White House is a joy and their only job is to make you happy. If you decide to stay in NYC, that will be fine also. When you come to the White House, let your son bring a friend. That is my unasked for advice. God Bless you.”
In an October 2017 interview, Bush said that she considered herself a Republican, but only four months later, she told Page: “I’d probably say no today.”
Bush also displayed a Trump countdown clock on a side table in her bedroom after a friend gifted it to her as a joke.
Trump did not attend Bush’s funeral, but praised her legacy in a statement, reported The Washington Post.
“For decades, Barbara was a titan in American life,” Trump said. “Her presence and character were engraved into America’s identity. Her strength and toughness really embodied the spirit of our country, and her warmth and devotion earned the admiration of an entire nation and, indeed, the entire world. She was a tireless champion for literacy, she was a fierce advocate for the American family and she was a woman of proud patriotism and profound faith.”