Ingraham: America ‘won’t be fooled again’ as Bush ‘speaks for Biden’ in political remarks
In her “Ingraham Angle” on Monday, host Laura Ingraham noted that President Joe Biden failed to offer public remarks on Saturday, 20 years after Al Qaeda terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001.
She also noted how pundits and public observers had varied predictions as to why Biden was silent – whether he would be booed on stage at such a solemn event, or whether he would go off script or get lost.
But, the host said the most plausible reason is that former President George W. Bush essentially spoke as a proxy for him during remarks in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
“Why would Biden need to speak at all when George W. Bush would do it for him?” she said, pointing to what she said was a political commentary in the midst of his remarks.
“We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can do not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But there is disdainful pluralism in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols. They are children of the same foul spirit and it is our continuing duty to confront them,” Bush said Saturday.
Ingraham said the 43rd president wasn’t speaking about actual extremists like Antifa or Black Lives Matter, “whose rampages and riots caused death and destruction coast to coast.” She added that Bush never once spoke out during the mass violence and rank criminal activity in places like Portland, Philadelphia, Washington and New York last year.
“Do you remember seeing him speak out about any of that? When they screamed that America is “inherently racist” did he raise an objection? When they tried to burn down Saint John’s Church across from the White House did President Bush decry the defiling of “national symbols”? No and No.”
Those remarks, she said, would have fit just as well coming out of Biden’s mouth – as the president rarely misses a chance to slam his predecessor or his predecessor’s supporters on one account or another.
“Of course, the elites who despised Bush for the 8 years he was in office lapped it up,” Ingraham added, pointing to plaudits from CNN’s Dana Bash and John Berman, and MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt.
“Bush and Obama have coordinated before in hitting Trump. One day in October 2017, both men in separate speeches hit Trump without mentioning him by name of course,” Ingraham added.
“When Benghazi went down and four Americans died, Bush didn’t speak out. When Obamacare was rammed through without a single Republican vote, Bush didn’t speak out. When Biden created a humanitarian, national security, and economic nightmare at the border, Bush didn’t speak out.”
“But when Donald Trump began to slowly but surely call out and dismantle Bush’s globalist legacy, he couldn’t stop himself. It was personal.”
She played another clip from Bush’s speech, in which he claimed “bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seem more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication… We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism…” noting again that any “prominent Democrat” could be imagined saying the same about Donald Trump.
In turn, she added, Democrats and their media allies have ideologically separated the Bushes and Cheneys from the GOP and have espoused that “it should essentially be labeled a terrorist organization. This idea is being openly discussed among the left.”
“Let’s not kid ourselves, the Bushes helped raise 150 million dollars for Jeb’s 2016 run, and in the end, Jeb dropped out before getting to his own home state primary. And they still don’t get it. They’re not mad at the people who called him a war criminal or Hitler or who ridiculed him every week on Saturday Night Live. They’re mad at the Republicans who rejected their policies.”
“They all claimed that Trump was the devil incarnate for demanding loyalty of the people who worked for him, but the truth is, the Bushes were the ones who demanded personal loyalty regardless of how their policies affected the country.”
“This is all hard for me to say tonight, because I always liked the Bushes personally.”
Ingraham said she herself has seen the Bushes’ in action in that way, when she publicly questioned President Bush’s 2005 choice of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harriet Miers to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Bush ultimately settled on now-Justice Sam Alito Jr.
“When I questioned and ultimately helped torpedo his nomination of the supremely unqualified Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, the Bush White House made it clear they wouldn’t ever deal with me again,” she said. “You can never go against the Family.”
“So the Old Bush Guard has declared an unwinnable war again, and this time it’s against the 74-million-plus Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020, and who didn’t vote for Jeb in 2016.”
She noted that while Bush was trying to endear himself to the media that called him all sorts of names and demonized him for eight years, Trump was in the very same city meeting with firefighters and NYPD officers to mark the solemn occaision.
“The fact is, most conservatives long ago shook off the allure of the Bushes. We found new leaders – including exciting young governors — who will fight for us instead of against us, and we won’t be fooled again,” the host said.
