Turns out that it was a former Bush staffer that let him have it.
A former ethics chief in the George W. Bush administration condemned President Donald Trump’s mishandling of calls to families of fallen soldiers, and said Trump lacks compassion because he ducked his own military service.
Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer, told CNN on Wednesday night that Trump’s public references to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, were “atrocious.”
“He has no empathy, no understanding of the human emotions of what people go through because he never did it himself, he stayed home during Vietnam with his sore foot or whatever it was,” Painter said. “What he’s done to Gen. Kelly is atrocious.”
https://politiciandirect.com/bush-ethics-chief-trump-has-no-empathy-for-fallen-soldiers-families
Bush's statement avoided mentioning Trump and was a more general criticism of the administration:
For the past nine years, George W. Bush has largely stayed out of presidential politics; he declined to criticize his successor, Barack Obama, and he chose not to endorse but largely ignored President Trump. While Mitt Romney and others spoke out publicly against Trump, Bush stayed above the fray.
That changed in a big way Thursday.
Speaking at a George W. Bush Institute event in New York, Bush didn't use Trump's name, but his target became clearer as the speech progressed. Here's a sampling:
“Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.”
“We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism.”
“We’ve seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. . . . Argument turns too easily into animosity.”
“It means that bigotry and white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed, and it means the very identity of our nation depends on passing along civic ideals.”
“Bullying and prejudice in our public life … provides permission for cruelty and bigotry.”
“The only way to pass along civic values is to live up to them.”
Any one of these quotes in isolation could be dismissed as highflying rhetoric aimed at the general coarsening of our political culture — or the rise of forms of nationalism and extremism that clearly exist outside the Oval Office.
But almost each of these quotes has some connection to Trump. “Conspiracy theories and fabrications?” Check and check. “Nationalism and nativism?” Check. A “degraded discourse?” Big check. “Bigotry and white supremacy?” Trump was criticized for not calling them out strongly enough in Charlottesville. “Bullying?” Huge check. Not “living up to civic values?” Check, definitely.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...of-trumpism-and-trump/?utm_term=.d2ff13d89b8b
