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Explosive new book drops the dime on Jeb Bush.
Here are some excerpts from an explosive new book due out tomorrow by McKay Coppins, a senior writer for the BuzzFeed News politics team, about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.
The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House.
From the book:
Whisper Campaigns and “Zipper Problems”: How Jeb Bush’s Allies Tried — and Failed — to Stop Marco Rubio
On the night of the 2010 midterm elections, a portly, silver-haired Jeb Bush stood on a stage in the courtyard of Miami’s luxe Biltmore Hotel, appearing to choke back tears. The beloved former governor of Florida was there to introduce the young conservative insurgent who had just pulled off a remarkable underdog victory in the U.S. Senate race.
“Bushes get emotional, so I’m gonna try my hardest,” Jeb told the ecstatic crowd of Republicans. “My wife told me, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ But Marco Rubio makes me cry for joy!”
At the time, it looked like the culmination of a sturdy alliance and deep friendship — the proud mentor presenting his protege. Five years later, however, the two men are locked in a fight for the Republican presidential nomination, and recent headlines suggest the relationship has soured. According to the New York Times, Bush’s super PAC has threatened to spend $20 million in a blitz of negative ads intended “to damage … Rubio’s reputation and halt his sudden ascent in the polls.” And last month, an internal document leaked detailing the Bush campaign’s efforts to cast Rubio as “a risky bet” for donors. “Those who have looked into Marco’s background in the past have been concerned with what they have found,” the document cryptically warned.
The Bush campaign didn’t elaborate on its innuendo. But, as I detail in my new book, The Wilderness, Jeb’s allies went much further in a behind-the-scenes, last-ditch effort to keep Rubio from running in the first place.
Jeb and his team recognized the threat posed by Rubio nearly a year ago, and took aggressive action to knock him out of 2016 contention — with some in Bush’s circle trying to smear the senator by allegedly circulating lurid, unsubstantiated rumors of infidelity.
Reached for comment Sunday, Bush spokesman Tim Miller said, “Our campaign has never said anything of this nature and doesn’t believe it. The candidates will be graded on their records both in the private sector and public office, as well as their plans for the future.”
But months before the campaign began, Republican donors, operatives, and politicos told a different story. The same day Mitt Romney bowed out of the 2016 race — marking the first and last real victory for Jeb’s “juggernaut” campaign — a California bundler who was being courted by Bush’s team told me, “They’re going after Rubio next. It’s like whack-a-mole. They’re going to try to take out everyone before the primaries even start.”
“Bushes get emotional, so I’m gonna try my hardest,” Jeb told the ecstatic crowd of Republicans. “My wife told me, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ But Marco Rubio makes me cry for joy!”
At the time, it looked like the culmination of a sturdy alliance and deep friendship — the proud mentor presenting his protege. Five years later, however, the two men are locked in a fight for the Republican presidential nomination, and recent headlines suggest the relationship has soured. According to the New York Times, Bush’s super PAC has threatened to spend $20 million in a blitz of negative ads intended “to damage … Rubio’s reputation and halt his sudden ascent in the polls.” And last month, an internal document leaked detailing the Bush campaign’s efforts to cast Rubio as “a risky bet” for donors. “Those who have looked into Marco’s background in the past have been concerned with what they have found,” the document cryptically warned.
The Bush campaign didn’t elaborate on its innuendo. But, as I detail in my new book, The Wilderness, Jeb’s allies went much further in a behind-the-scenes, last-ditch effort to keep Rubio from running in the first place.
Jeb and his team recognized the threat posed by Rubio nearly a year ago, and took aggressive action to knock him out of 2016 contention — with some in Bush’s circle trying to smear the senator by allegedly circulating lurid, unsubstantiated rumors of infidelity.
Reached for comment Sunday, Bush spokesman Tim Miller said, “Our campaign has never said anything of this nature and doesn’t believe it. The candidates will be graded on their records both in the private sector and public office, as well as their plans for the future.”
But months before the campaign began, Republican donors, operatives, and politicos told a different story. The same day Mitt Romney bowed out of the 2016 race — marking the first and last real victory for Jeb’s “juggernaut” campaign — a California bundler who was being courted by Bush’s team told me, “They’re going after Rubio next. It’s like whack-a-mole. They’re going to try to take out everyone before the primaries even start.”
.....
When new hires would show up for their first day of work at the Tallahassee offices of Florida governor Jeb Bush, they would find on their desks a bound copy of an 1899 essay titled “A Message to Garcia.” Even in its 19th century prose, the 1,500-word pamphlet was a breezy read that could easily be skimmed in the space of a coffee break — but the aides who wanted to thrive were expected to fully internalize its thesis.
In the essay, author Elbert Hubbard relates the story of a U.S. army officer assigned by President William McKinley to deliver an important message to the Cuban rebel general Calixto Garcia, deep in the island’s jungles. The exemplary officer takes the order “without asking any idiotic questions.” He dutifully sets off on a boat, disappears into the jungle, and emerges weeks later having executed his mission flawlessly. Praising the officer’s quiet diligence, Hubbard writes, “There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book learning young men need…but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing — ‘Carry a message to Garcia!’”
Inside each pamphlet, the governor’s aides would find a handwritten inscription from their new boss: “Be a messenger.”
Some of the new staffers no doubt interpreted the gift as little more than a well-intentioned bit of fortune cookie management theory. But the ones who would become the governor’s most trusted aides were those who received it as it was intended: a new creed to live by, an invitation to convert. From those baptized into the Bush inner circle, Jeb demanded fierce obedience, a bullet-blocking sense of loyalty, and a monomaniacal drive to get the job done by whatever means necessary. Across Florida, allies and adversaries alike marveled at his Vader-like grip on his troops. “He instills something weird in you,” David Johnson, one of Jeb’s longtime loyalists, told me. “You really want to please him. It doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 50. You want to make Jeb Bush happy with your work, happy with your competence.” And often the fastest way to earn the boss’s attaboys was with sharpened knives and a killer instinct.
Indeed, beneath the glossy exterior of his public profile — that of the compassionate conservative, the happy warrior, the good-natured reformer — Jeb possessed a hard-edged, often ruthless political style that ran through his entire rise and reign in the Sunshine State. “He’s been the big, bad kid,” Chris Smith, a leading Democrat in the Florida House, complained to a reporter toward the end of Jeb’s term. “And he’s wielded that power mercilessly.”
In the essay, author Elbert Hubbard relates the story of a U.S. army officer assigned by President William McKinley to deliver an important message to the Cuban rebel general Calixto Garcia, deep in the island’s jungles. The exemplary officer takes the order “without asking any idiotic questions.” He dutifully sets off on a boat, disappears into the jungle, and emerges weeks later having executed his mission flawlessly. Praising the officer’s quiet diligence, Hubbard writes, “There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book learning young men need…but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing — ‘Carry a message to Garcia!’”
Inside each pamphlet, the governor’s aides would find a handwritten inscription from their new boss: “Be a messenger.”
Some of the new staffers no doubt interpreted the gift as little more than a well-intentioned bit of fortune cookie management theory. But the ones who would become the governor’s most trusted aides were those who received it as it was intended: a new creed to live by, an invitation to convert. From those baptized into the Bush inner circle, Jeb demanded fierce obedience, a bullet-blocking sense of loyalty, and a monomaniacal drive to get the job done by whatever means necessary. Across Florida, allies and adversaries alike marveled at his Vader-like grip on his troops. “He instills something weird in you,” David Johnson, one of Jeb’s longtime loyalists, told me. “You really want to please him. It doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 50. You want to make Jeb Bush happy with your work, happy with your competence.” And often the fastest way to earn the boss’s attaboys was with sharpened knives and a killer instinct.
Indeed, beneath the glossy exterior of his public profile — that of the compassionate conservative, the happy warrior, the good-natured reformer — Jeb possessed a hard-edged, often ruthless political style that ran through his entire rise and reign in the Sunshine State. “He’s been the big, bad kid,” Chris Smith, a leading Democrat in the Florida House, complained to a reporter toward the end of Jeb’s term. “And he’s wielded that power mercilessly.”
Also from the book:
George W. Bush tells Jeb to 'stop it with this s---' after his brother fumbled over Iraq War interview questions, new book alleges, November 30, 2015
Following a string of clumsy responses earlier this year to questions about his brother’s decision to invade Iraq, Jeb Bush received a call from George W. Bush in which the former president told him to “stop it with this s---,” a new book about the 2016 race alleges.
Jeb Bush, in the days leading up to his June 2016 campaign launch, still hadn’t figured out how to best paint his relationship with his former-president brother and struggled repeatedly to offer a clear assessment on the War in Iraq, the book, titled “The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House,” claims.
“As the day of his campaign kickoff pep rally approached, Jeb Bush was a man sorely lacking in pep,” McKay Coppins, a senior political writer at Buzzfeed and the book’s author, wrote, according to excerpts obtained by Politico. “He was ... growing increasingly resentful of the political reporters who kept trying to bait him into bashing his brother.”
“Over four grueling days, he ducked and dodged and dithered on the Iraq question, fumbling through five different non-answers until finally Dubya called up Jeb and told him to knock it off,” Coppins wrote in the book, which goes on sale Tuesday.
“Stop it with this s---,” Bush’s older brother told Jeb, according to the excerpt. “Say whatever you have to say,” he added.
Jeb Bush, in the days leading up to his June 2016 campaign launch, still hadn’t figured out how to best paint his relationship with his former-president brother and struggled repeatedly to offer a clear assessment on the War in Iraq, the book, titled “The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House,” claims.
“As the day of his campaign kickoff pep rally approached, Jeb Bush was a man sorely lacking in pep,” McKay Coppins, a senior political writer at Buzzfeed and the book’s author, wrote, according to excerpts obtained by Politico. “He was ... growing increasingly resentful of the political reporters who kept trying to bait him into bashing his brother.”
“Over four grueling days, he ducked and dodged and dithered on the Iraq question, fumbling through five different non-answers until finally Dubya called up Jeb and told him to knock it off,” Coppins wrote in the book, which goes on sale Tuesday.
“Stop it with this s---,” Bush’s older brother told Jeb, according to the excerpt. “Say whatever you have to say,” he added.
And more from the book:
Book: Jeb Bush 'shock and awe' campaign kept Romney out of '16 race, November 30, 2015
SALT LAKE CITY — Mitt Romney's plans to run a third time for president fell to a "shock and awe" campaign launched by another Republican already in the race, Jeb Bush, according to a chapter of a new book obtained by the Deseret News.
In the book "The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House," McKay Coppins writes that Romney was convinced he could win the 2016 GOP nomination.
But after "a rattling glimpse at how vicious and driven Jeb could be," Romney ended his efforts to put together another campaign on Jan. 30, despite having told former donors three weeks earlier, "I want to be president," the chapter says.
In the book "The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House," McKay Coppins writes that Romney was convinced he could win the 2016 GOP nomination.
But after "a rattling glimpse at how vicious and driven Jeb could be," Romney ended his efforts to put together another campaign on Jan. 30, despite having told former donors three weeks earlier, "I want to be president," the chapter says.
Bush is described in the chapter by Coppins, the senior political writer for BuzzFeed, as forcing Romney's hand just as he was beginning to consider another run for the White House amid renewed popularity, despite his loss to President Barack Obama.
Romney responded to Bush getting in the race by meeting privately with a group of former donors in New York City on Jan. 9, telling them he, too, was considering a run for president — news that quickly became public.
Bush was ready, Coppins wrote, with a strategy his campaign labeled "shock and awe" after the show of overwhelming force that Bush's brother, then-President George W. Bush, deployed at the outset of the Iraq War.
"The goal was to crush Romney's spirit and scare off any other potential challengers who were on the fence," the chapter said, by rounding up big donors and key political operatives as well as pushing negative stories about Romney's efforts.
The much-publicized Jan. 22 meeting between Romney and Bush at Romney's Deer Valley home, planned for months, was described as a "last-ditch" try by Romney to use private polling data to justify his bid but Bush remained undeterred.
The polling, according to the chapter, was commissioned by a former donor and showed widespread support for Romney and "serious vulnerabilities" for Bush among thousands of respondents in 20 states.
Bush was ready, Coppins wrote, with a strategy his campaign labeled "shock and awe" after the show of overwhelming force that Bush's brother, then-President George W. Bush, deployed at the outset of the Iraq War.
"The goal was to crush Romney's spirit and scare off any other potential challengers who were on the fence," the chapter said, by rounding up big donors and key political operatives as well as pushing negative stories about Romney's efforts.
The much-publicized Jan. 22 meeting between Romney and Bush at Romney's Deer Valley home, planned for months, was described as a "last-ditch" try by Romney to use private polling data to justify his bid but Bush remained undeterred.
The polling, according to the chapter, was commissioned by a former donor and showed widespread support for Romney and "serious vulnerabilities" for Bush among thousands of respondents in 20 states.
Getting back to Jeb!'s stealth campaign to paint Rubio as having a zipper problem:
Eventually, word got back to the senator’s camp (Rubio) that Jeb’s close allies in Florida were working to revive the “zipper problem” meme in a last-ditch effort to freeze Rubio out of the race; they were circulating the rumors anew among donors and politicos and cautioning them to exercise due diligence before signing on with his campaign. From the scraps of intel Rubio’s team was getting from donors, it was difficult to tell how widespread or organized the whisper campaign might be, but some on Rubio’s staff believed they’d identified at least two of the culprits. The first was Ann Herberger, a Miami-based political fundraiser now on Jeb’s payroll whom Rubio had axed from his Senate campaign for failing to bring in donors. “Marco fired her and now she’s bitter,” a Rubio strategist told me.
The second culprit they’d identified was Ana Navarro. Few people inspired more acrimony among Rubio’s aides these days than the First Lady of the Biltmore, who they regarded as a flighty and spiteful socialite masquerading as a political strategist for TV. They resented how she had allowed reporters to quote her as a “confidante” or “adviser” to Rubio for years, only to bolt to Jeb the second he decided to run for president. They now regularly heard about her dissing Rubio to the important power brokers and politicos who filtered in and out of her boyfriend’s hotel, and at least one of the senator’s advisers was convinced that she was fanning the infidelity rumors. “That woman couldn’t say nice things about her mother,” said the adviser. “She’s just gonna say acerbic things for the sake of saying them.” (Both Herberger and Navarro denied spreading rumors about Rubio.)
Meanwhile, in a series of off-the-record conversations, Jeb’s messengers tried to convince a number of influential figures in political media that they had the goods on Rubio. Among these was MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. A former Republican congressman from Florida who remained tapped into the state’s politics, Scarborough was skeptical whenever somebody tried to convince him that Rubio had an explosive career-ending secret lurking in his past. “Everybody who runs against him says he has girlfriends, or financial problems. They throw a lot of shit at the wall,” Scarborough told me. “It’s the same thing from the Jeb Bush camp. They keep telling me, ‘Oh, we’ve got the thing that’s going to take him down.’ But nobody’s ever produced anything that we all haven’t read in the Tallahassee Democrat.”
To many in Rubio’s orbit, the most maddening part of the unkillable zipper meme was not the thousands of dollars they’d already spent trying to debunk it, or even the fact that Jeb’s people seemed so dead set against a competitive primary that they’d resorted to shameless gossip-mongering: It was the double standard at work. After all, Jeb had faced his own rumors of adultery in his day. In one of the more enduringly bizarre episodes of his governorship, a reporter had confronted him at a bill-signing ceremony about rumors that he was having an affair with a former model who had worked closely with his administration. Jeb had indignantly, and emotionally, denied the “hurtful” gossip, but the incident gave a Vanity Fair writer who profiled him shortly thereafter license to detail the other unsubstantiated Jeb rumors swirling around Tallahassee. And yet no one in the GOP establishment seemed to be wringing their hands over Jeb’s “zipper problem.”
The second culprit they’d identified was Ana Navarro. Few people inspired more acrimony among Rubio’s aides these days than the First Lady of the Biltmore, who they regarded as a flighty and spiteful socialite masquerading as a political strategist for TV. They resented how she had allowed reporters to quote her as a “confidante” or “adviser” to Rubio for years, only to bolt to Jeb the second he decided to run for president. They now regularly heard about her dissing Rubio to the important power brokers and politicos who filtered in and out of her boyfriend’s hotel, and at least one of the senator’s advisers was convinced that she was fanning the infidelity rumors. “That woman couldn’t say nice things about her mother,” said the adviser. “She’s just gonna say acerbic things for the sake of saying them.” (Both Herberger and Navarro denied spreading rumors about Rubio.)
Meanwhile, in a series of off-the-record conversations, Jeb’s messengers tried to convince a number of influential figures in political media that they had the goods on Rubio. Among these was MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. A former Republican congressman from Florida who remained tapped into the state’s politics, Scarborough was skeptical whenever somebody tried to convince him that Rubio had an explosive career-ending secret lurking in his past. “Everybody who runs against him says he has girlfriends, or financial problems. They throw a lot of shit at the wall,” Scarborough told me. “It’s the same thing from the Jeb Bush camp. They keep telling me, ‘Oh, we’ve got the thing that’s going to take him down.’ But nobody’s ever produced anything that we all haven’t read in the Tallahassee Democrat.”
To many in Rubio’s orbit, the most maddening part of the unkillable zipper meme was not the thousands of dollars they’d already spent trying to debunk it, or even the fact that Jeb’s people seemed so dead set against a competitive primary that they’d resorted to shameless gossip-mongering: It was the double standard at work. After all, Jeb had faced his own rumors of adultery in his day. In one of the more enduringly bizarre episodes of his governorship, a reporter had confronted him at a bill-signing ceremony about rumors that he was having an affair with a former model who had worked closely with his administration. Jeb had indignantly, and emotionally, denied the “hurtful” gossip, but the incident gave a Vanity Fair writer who profiled him shortly thereafter license to detail the other unsubstantiated Jeb rumors swirling around Tallahassee. And yet no one in the GOP establishment seemed to be wringing their hands over Jeb’s “zipper problem.”
Well, now, look what I ran across recently:
It looks like Jeb!'s alleged "old flame" is writing support letters for his campaign to the editor of, wait for it---- the Tallahassee Democrat
Well, isn't this interesting.....
8:33 p.m. EDT September 12, 2015
Gov. Jeb Bush has a plan for a modern tax code
The last time the tax rate was updated in the United States was before the Inte rnet was invented in 1986. The world has changed and so has our economy. Tax codes and regulations that worked almost 30 years ago are now choking our economy and preventing growth.
After enduring six years of tax increases and strict regulation, Gov. Bush is giving Americans hope with his recently unveiled plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code. Under his plan, the tax code will be simple, fair and clear.
During his time as governor of Florida, he lowered taxes every year, which led to new jobs, a healthier economy and more money in the pockets of Florida families and businesses. I am happy to see Gov. Bush taking these tried and true policies to Washington, D.C. and applying them on a national scale.
Our country needs a modern and fair tax code with a competitive rate of 25 percent so that small and big businesses can grow and create jobs, our economy can improve and American can prosper.
CYNTHIA HENDERSON
Tallahassee
cyhenderson@me.com
Gov. Jeb Bush has a plan for a modern tax code
The last time the tax rate was updated in the United States was before the Inte rnet was invented in 1986. The world has changed and so has our economy. Tax codes and regulations that worked almost 30 years ago are now choking our economy and preventing growth.
After enduring six years of tax increases and strict regulation, Gov. Bush is giving Americans hope with his recently unveiled plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code. Under his plan, the tax code will be simple, fair and clear.
During his time as governor of Florida, he lowered taxes every year, which led to new jobs, a healthier economy and more money in the pockets of Florida families and businesses. I am happy to see Gov. Bush taking these tried and true policies to Washington, D.C. and applying them on a national scale.
Our country needs a modern and fair tax code with a competitive rate of 25 percent so that small and big businesses can grow and create jobs, our economy can improve and American can prosper.
CYNTHIA HENDERSON
Tallahassee
cyhenderson@me.com
As he points that arrogant finger at Rubio, it is also Jeb Bush, the big mean kid, who has some serious vulnerabilities on the near horizon.
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