Jeb Bush literally stood on tip-toes for the debate photo to make sure he was taller than Trump

Jeb Bush and Donald Trump at the first prime-time GOP debate of the 2016 race.

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 17 September 2015

At 6'3", Jeb Bush is already the tallest candidate in the Republican field, which is probably to his advantage — Americans tend to like tall presidents. In fact, four out of the last five occupants of the White House have been 6'1" or taller.

But during the group photo at last night's GOP debate, Bush apparently wanted to make sure he towered over the rest of the contenders — and perhaps especially his immediate neighbor, Donald Trump. In this video clip from the Daily Mail, you can see that just before the camera flashes, Bush goes up on his tip-toes:

If you didn't quite catch it, here's a still which shows Bush up on his toes, with his arms spread wide to take up lots of space.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.