Bush says Republicans won’t win the White House if candidates don’t campaign in “every nook and cranny” of the country, especially in Latino and African-American communities.
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He raised some eyebrows among conservatives last year when he said illegal immigration sometimes is an “act of love” by one relative desperate to be reunited with their US-based family. The largely Hispanic crowd welcomed him enthusiastically, and Bush talked up his support for Puerto Rican statehood – an issue that divides many Puerto Ricans and Republicans – and his support for giving undocumented immigrants in America a pathway to legal status or citizenship, a position many Republicans oppose.
Trump’s rhetoric, he said, “makes the solving of this problem much more hard”.
“Hurt”, Bush said. “To hear a person speak in such vulgar fashion”. But the former Florida Governor says the way to alleviate poverty is not by taxing “everything that lives or breathes”, but through “high sustained, economic growth”, which he has said throughout the campaign season can be achieved by having four percent growth in our county. In response to a question regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that same-sex marriage is legal, Bush said he believed religious freedom in the country is under attack. That line was borrowed from the name of his super PAC, Right to Rise.
“My message is one of optimism, inspiration”, Bush said in Spanish and again in English, a clear jab at Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has drawn attention with his controversial remarks about Mexico and Mexican immigrants. “It could become like Greece, but without relief”, he said.
“I don’t think foreign policy should leave human rights behind”, Brewer said.
Bush also said the U.S. has not done enough publicly to support Christians who are being persecuted around the world. “If not us, who?” he asked rhetorically.
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Back in early 2014, CNN asked this same question and observed a similar result – Democrats and Independents strongly favored legalization, while Republicans backed decreased immigration and increased deportation 62-34. “It’s a broken system used as a wedge issue for political purposes”.
