Donald Trump once again mixed up candidates he ran against this week, this time conflating Jeb Bush with George W. Bush. But, had Trump actually run against George W. Bush, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” crew is pretty sure Trump would have been “gutted” in no time at all.
During a speech in South Carolina on Monday, Trump recounted to his followers that, in 2016, “everyone thought Bush was going to win,” because he “supposedly was a military person.” He then mocked his military leadership.
“He got us into the Middle East,” Trump said. “How did that work out, right? But they all thought that Bush might win — Jeb. Remember Jeb?”
Of course, Jeb Bush did not lead the U.S. through conflict in the Middle East. That was his brother, George W. Bush, more than a decade earlier. But, on Tuesday’s episode of “Morning Joe,” presidential historian Jon Meacham imagined what a George W. Bush match-up with Trump would actually look like.
“I will say one thing: One of the great primary races ever would have been George W. Bush versus Donald Trump,” Meacham said. “That would have been a cage match.”
But Joe Scarborough quickly jumped in to disagree, joking that it would have been a very shortlived cage match.
“That would have been over in five minutes,” Scarborough mocked. “Donald Trump would have started talking and George W. Bush would have looked at him, he would have gone ‘Heh! And I’m the one that’s supposed to be dumb! What are you talking about?’”
He continued, “And he would have gutted him. George W. Bush would have finished Donald Trump’s campaign in five minutes.”
Trump’s Bush mix-up marks the second time he’s confused his former political opponents, after erroneously saying a few weeks ago that he won against Barack Obama.
You can watch the full discussion from “Morning Joe” in the video above.
