By Chandelis Duster
CNN
April 20, 2021
Washington (CNN)Former President George W. Bush on Tuesday described the Republican Party as “isolationist, protectionist and, to a certain extent, nativist,” his strongest and most direct criticism yet against his own party since leaving office in 2009.
Bush’s comments are notable not only because he’s a former Republican president, but he has largely kept quiet on politics since he left Washington. He has recently written about the need for a gentler approach to immigration in contrast to much of the hardline rhetoric that dominates the current GOP in the post-Trump era, but he has typically avoided directly criticizing the party.
Asked on Tuesday how he would describe the Republican Party as he sees it today, Bush told NBC’s Hoda Kotb on the “Today” show, “I would describe it as isolationist, protectionist and, to a certain extent, nativist.”