This blog has moved.

Please visit our new page here https://www.miamiherald.com/naked-politics/

« 'It's just wrong,' Jeb Bush says of Mike Huckabee's Holocaust reference. Marco Rubio declines to comment. | Main | Cuban-American lawmakers react with alarm to Cuba's upgrade on trafficking report »

Jeb Bush tells Telemundo he felt 'hurt' by Donald Trump's comments about Mexicans

@PatriciaMazzei

Jeb Bush spoke Monday in more personal terms than he has in the past about Donald Trump's claim that many Mexicans who cross the border into the U.S. are criminals and rapists.

How did Trump's comments make him feel, considering that his wife was born in Mexico, Telemundo news anchor José Díaz-Balart asked Bush in a Spanish-language interview taped in Orlando.

"Hurt," Bush said. "To hear a person speak in such vulgar fashion. This makes solving this problem more difficult."

Bush added that, "when politicians speak that way, offend millions of people who are here legally" and get in the way of fixing the problem. "It doesn't make sense."

The former Florida governor, who routinely answers questions in Spanish from reporters in cities with a strong Spanish-language media presence, also elaborated on how his family deals with its Hispanicness.

"Columba is very Mexican -- proud of her citizenship in this country, of course, but we eat Mexican food at home," Bush said, referring to his wife. "Our children are Hispanic, in many ways."

Spanish is spoken at home, he added, "particularly when my first lady is mad at me." 

Díaz-Balart's brothers, U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both Miami Republicans, have endorsed Bush.

This post has been updated.

Comments