George W Bush: It Doesn’t Serve the Nation for Former Presidents to Criticize Their Successors

In an interview that aired on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” former President George W. Bush dismissed the suggestion that he had criticized President Donald Trump in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer earlier this week.

Bush maintained as he has consistently after leaving office that it does not serve the nation for former presidents to criticize their successors.

“I’m out of politics,” Bush said. “My whole view is I don’t think it serves the nation, or the office of president, to have a former president criticize his successors. I happy to be off the stage, except this one.”

Bush also reiterated a point he made in that same Lauer interview about the importance of the press.

“I said something the other day and of course the headlines were ‘Bush criticizes Trump,'” Bush added. “Here’s what I believed when I was president, post-president, the nation needs a free and independent press. And the reason why is power can be very corrupting and we need a press corps to hold politicians to account, including me. And, yeah, I didn’t like it sometimes when people said things about me. But, you know, that’s the job.”

(h/t RCP Video)

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