Donald Trump got an assist from a higher authority to win the Republican nomination, according to one-time rival Jeb Bush.
“The pope intervening in American politics didn’t help,” Bush said in an interview Monday with MSNBC, referring to the Mass the pontiff said at the US-Mexico border just before the South Carolina primary — highlighting a hot-button issue for Trump, who has vowed to build a wall there.
“The news cycle was dominated by that. Trump, to his credit, was very smart at exploiting these kind of opportunities,” Bush griped.
“You’re a Catholic blaming the pope?” interviewer and former Bush staffer Nicolle Wallace wondered.
“No, no, I’m not blaming,” Bush said with a laugh. “I mean, [I had] been talking about basically open borders at a time when the whole Trump phenomena was to build a wall and let, make Mexico pay for where he goes — literally goes to the border for a massive Mass.”
Bush added, “And he had every right to preach the gospel there. But I don’t think he should be intervening. I don’t know if he understood that he was intervening in our political affairs.”
After placing fourth in the South Carolina primary, with 7.8 percent of the votes, Bush threw in the towel.
In the same interview, Bush revealed he does not plan to vote for either Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton — and he declared, “Conservatism is temporarily dead.”
“The simple fact is there’s a threshold past which anybody that steps into the Oval Office must go past. And I don’t think either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump pass that threshold. In terms of temperament, character, trustworthiness, integrity,” Bush said.
“So what do you do? I mean if you believe like I do the presidency is sacred ground and you want a president that uphold the Constitution and I don’t believe that either one of the candidates fulfills that primary kind of objective, uh, I can’t vote for either one of them.”