Former president George W. Bush revealed he voted for Condoleeza Rice, who served as his secretary of state, as a write-in candidate during the 2020 presidential election instead of voting for former president Donald Trump or President Joe Biden.
Bush said he joked with Rice about writing her name on his ballot, according to People magazine.
“She knows it,” he said. “But she told me she would refuse to accept the office.”
The former president made the revelation shortly after slamming today’s GOP as “isolationist, protectionist, and, to a certain extent, nativist.”
The comment seemed to be a jab at Trump, who was much more of an immigration hawk than Bush, who has long supported amnesty for illegal immigrants.
After facing pushback, Bush amended his comments to say he shouldn’t have painted the whole party as being that way.
“Really what I should have said — there’s loud voices who are isolationists, protectionists and nativists, something, by the way, I talked about when I was president,” Bush said.
Bush has made it clear that he is no fan of Trump or the Trump-led GOP.
Shortly after Trump was elected in 2016, Bush slammed U.S. politics for allowing “bigotry” and “conspiracy theories” to take over.
Without mentioning Trump directly, Bush said, “Bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.”
“We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism and forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America,” he continued. “We’ve seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together.”
Bush recently re-upped his call for amnesty, arguing “we can be both a lawful and welcoming nation at the same time.”
