After sparring with Trump, Jeb heads to U.S.-Mexico border town

Jeb Bush will travel Monday to McAllen, Texas, which sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, to discuss border security, immigration reform and other economic issues with local officials — a trip that will come as Bush is engaging in a feud with Donald Trump over immigration.

The meeting with local leaders will be closed to the press and Bush will not be touring the border, his campaign announced Friday.


Bush, who has had a fundraiser in McAllen scheduled for weeks, will also appear at a local restaurant. While the events had not been disclosed until Friday morning, they’d been in the planning stages for “a few weeks,” according to campaign spokesman Tim Miller.

Miller brushed off the idea that the campaign events are in any way a response to Trump, who visited Laredo last month and has made his own nativist pitch for immigration reform the centerpiece of his surging campaign.

“I think it’s fair to say that Jeb will use the event to contrast his consistent, achievable plan for addressing immigration issues and securing the border with Donald Trump’s unserious and unconservative one,” Miller said. “So in that sense he’s had an impact.”

The announcement comes after days of intensifying sparring between Trump and Bush, who this week showed a new willingness to take on the bombastic businessman who currently leads the GOP primary field and continues to upend the race.

As he argued forcefully Wednesday and Thursday that Trump is not a true conservative with a record of accomplishment like his own, Bush found himself defending his own use of the term “anchor babies” to describe the children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S.

Bush, who has criticized Trump’s caustic tone and touted his own unique appeal to Hispanic voters, argued Thursday that the phrase, which he once counseled Republicans not to use, isn’t offensive.

He continued to take aim at Trump Friday on Twitter.

His massive inconsistencies aside, @realDonaldTrump’s immigration plan is not conservative and does not reflect our nation's values. — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) August 21, 2015

Trump, who’s been slamming Bush for weeks, fired off another tweet Friday morning hitting him for the flip-flop and clearly reveling in the extent to which the candidate long thought to be the party’s front-runner seems to be responding to him.

Jeb Bush signed memo saying not to use the term "anchor babies," offensive. Now he wants to use it because I use it. Stay true to yourself! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2015