It was the last time Trump would follow Bush.
Trump's 45-minute announcement speech is best remembered for his claim that Mexico was sending "rapists" and other criminals to the U.S., his pledge to build a "great, great wall on our southern border" and his brandishing of a financial statement that pegged his net worth at $8.7 billion.
It also included some pointed attacks on Bush, the perceived front runner at the time, in a preview of the slashing style Trump would deploy against a series of rivals — “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, “Little Marco” Rubio, “Crooked Hillary” Clinton among them — over the next year.
“I don’t see how he can possibly get the nomination,” Trump said of Bush a year ago. “He’s weak on immigration. He’s in favor of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can’t do it.”
Unlike other Republican candidates, Bush fought back early. His initial line of attack — pointing out Trump's past support for massive tax hikes, single-payer health care, abortion rights and Hillary Clinton — might have rocked an ordinary candidate in a typical Republican primary.
But Trump has shown repeatedly he’s not an ordinary candidate subject to normal laws of political gravity as he vanquished Bush and 15 other Republican candidates to become the presumptive GOP nominee.
Now Trump’s defiance of political norms is being put to the test again. At a stage when the nominee traditionally consolidates support within his own party, Trump continues to draw criticism from leading GOP figures and pledges of non-support from Jeb Bush, former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush and 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
This week, for example, several congressional Republicans distanced themselves from Trump's response to the Orlando massacre, with House Speaker Paul Ryan criticizing Trump's renewed call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country.
“A year ago there was the potential to have a united party behind a popular candidate posting up against a historically unpopular Hillary Clinton,” says veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who worked for Marco Rubio’s failed presidential bid. “Today we have a divided party with the one candidate in America less popular than Hillary Clinton as our presumptive nominee.”
“My beloved GOP is more fractured than I have ever seen it,” laments Bush loyalist Al Cardenas, a former Republican Party of Florida chairman and former head of the American Conservative Union. “For me, I am sitting on the fence for the first time ever awaiting either an evolution from our candidate or to sit this presidential race out and hope to help pick up the pieces after November.”
Longtime Republican money-raiser and Bush supporter Al Hoffman of North Palm Beach says the GOP is “torn apart” because of Trump. “In my opinion it’s over. I think Hillary will win hands-down.”
All the gnashing of teeth by party elites doesn’t hurt Trump, says Roger Stone, the legendary political street fighter who is a longtime friend of Trump.
“I actually think it helps him,” Stone says. “This election has been unlike any other election. The past elections have been Republicans vs. Democrats and therefore there was a premium on party unity. At this point the party decides overwhelmingly to nominate Donald and there’s a band of holdouts — who’s the fringe? They’re the fringe. Donald is the new face of the Republican Party. I think having the Romneys and Bushes against Donald Trump helps him because they are the past.”
Former Palm Beach County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein said Trump’s anti-establishment candidacy has brought healthy change to the GOP.
“The party is very, very different in the sense that the rank and file, those of us that consider ourselves grass roots people, found a way through Trump to express our displeasure with the party’s continual selling out to the left,” Dinerstein said. “Trump gave us our voice…Donald Trump gave the Republican Party its backbone.”
Dinerstein also said Trump “smashed the glass ceiling of political correctness. And that was huge. That meant that anybody could talk about anything.”
Trump’s disdain for political correctness has included remarks that have offended a variety of groups, particularly Hispanics, a demographic the GOP has made extensive efforts to woo after Romney’s dismal performance with Latinos in 2012.
“Some of Donald Trump’s statements have made it more difficult for Republicans to reach out to Hispanic voters. Mr. Trump says that he loves Hispanics and I’m still waiting to see the effort,” said political consultant Bettina Inclan, a former director of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee.
“What I do hope is that he uses the resources of the RNC and works in a partnership with those experts to connect with Hispanic voters. There’s definitely opportunities,” Inclan said. “If we as Republicans don’t reach out to them in a meaningful way, we’re in danger of causing long-term damage.”
Establishment Republicans who have embraced Trump are adjusting cautiously to the new reality.
“I think the Republican Party is changing. It’s in the process of becoming a more grass-roots party,” says Florida Republican National Committeeman Peter Feaman, an attorney from Boynton Beach.
“Two things have to happen for the Republican Party to come out of this election cycle better off. Number one, Trump needs to get elected. And number two, Trump needs to govern as a conservative Republican,” Feaman said. “If either of those things don’t happen, we’re going to have to re-unite a fractured party.”
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