Mitch Perry
Jeb Bush confirmed Tuesday afternoon that he won’t participate in the Iowa Straw Poll in August.
The news dominated the U.S. political scene Tuesday, obscuring to a degree the controversy accompanying Bush’s response to a question asked Sunday by Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly regarding the invasion of Iraq. Bush told Kelly that even knowing in retrospect that Iraq did not possess so-called weapons of mass destruction in 2003, he’d still invade if he were in charge, “and so would have Hillary Clinton.”
In a Tuesday afternoon statement, Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann told The Des Moines Register: “We hope Governor Bush rethinks his decision and realizes that grass roots will only grow in Iowa if he waters them. The RedState Gathering is a four-day event, and other candidates have already indicated that they will be attending both. We don’t buy this excuse and neither will Iowans.”
Bush is struggling in the polls in Iowa. A Quinnipiac survey released last week put the former Florida governor in seventh place, with only 5 percent support.
Bush will be in Iowa this weekend, including a town hall meeting in Dubuque, and the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner.
Bush appeared in a 15-minute interview Tuesday afternoon on Sean Hannity‘s nationally syndicated radio program, but wasn’t asked about his decision to skip the straw poll.
However, Hannity did ask about his response to Kelly’s question on Iraq, which drew hammering from Democrats and some conservatives during the past 24 hours.
On The Kelly File, Kelly asked Bush, “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”
“I would have, and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody,” Bush said, “and so would have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.”
With Hannity, though, Bush said, “I interpreted the question wrong, I guess.”
“I was talking about, given what people knew then, would you have done it, rather than knowing what we know now,” he told Hannity.
“Clearly there were mistakes as it related to both the intelligence in the lead up to the war, and the lack of focus on security.”
Then Bush segued into bashing Barack Obama, saying that security had improved in Iraq in 2007 when the surge of troops stabilized the area, security that was “totally obliterated by the president’s pulling out too early,” with ISIS now creating a “barbaric threat” in the region and beyond.
When Hannity then asked whether he would now make a different decision, Bush agreed.
“I don’t know what that decision would have been — that’s a hypothetical — but the simple fact is, mistakes were made. … we need to learn from the past to make sure that we’re strong and secure going forward.”
That response probably will clean up what had been an onslaught of negative press from both the right and the left for Bush for his initial reaction to Kelly’s question, which was aired Sunday afternoon by Fox before the entire interview was broadcast Monday night.
Earlier Tuesday Bush supporter and CNN political contributor Ana Navarro said Bush had misheard Kelly’s question.
Holly Shulman, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said, “Jeb Bush didn’t mishear the question: He’s just tone deaf.”
Bush also confirmed to Hannity that he will be announcing within the next month whether he will be a candidate for president. By not announcing so far, he’s been able to raise unlimited campaign money through his super PAC, the Right to Rise.
