Jeb Bush says Donald Trump is 'a chaos candidate and he'd be a chaos president'

(Image credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

published 16 December 2015

Within minutes of the CNN Republican debate starting, candidates Jeb Bush and Donald Trump went toe to toe regarding comments Trump made about banning Muslims from entering the United States.

When asked why earlier he called Trump and his plan "unhinged," Bush said that the Islamic State needs to be destroyed "in the caliphate," and after that happens, "the refugee issue will be solved." Bush said the U.S. needs "to arm the Kurds, in concert with Arab nations. If we're going to ban all Muslims, how are we going to get them to be part of a coalition to destroy ISIS?" Trump's proposal isn't "serious," he added, and it will "push the Muslim world, the Arab world, away from us at a time when we need to re-engage with them." Then came the zinger: "Donald is great at the one-liners, but he's a chaos candidate and he'd be a chaos president," Bush said to cheers. "He would not be the commander-in-chief we need to keep our country safe."

A clearly irritated Trump responded by saying he's sure Bush doesn't "really believe I'm unhinged. He said that very simply because he has failed in this campaign, it's been a total disaster, nobody cares, and frankly I'm the most solid person up here." Trump cited his company and professional success as being proof he's the real deal. "All I want to do is to make America great again," he said. "I don't want our country to be taken away from us."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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