AP Photo Bush brothers, Trump push hard in South Carolina George W. Bush, hitting the trail for the first time and under attack from Trump, responds by quietly pressing his brother's case.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Making his first campaign appearance on his brother’s behalf, George W. Bush didn’t engage directly with Donald Trump, who’s spent the last 72 hours baiting the former president with blistering criticism blaming him for the Iraq War and 9/11.

Bush didn’t even say Trump’s name.


But every word of his 20-minute speech to roughly 3,000 people here Monday night was intended to make voters reconsider supporting Trump and his inflammatory, brash brand of politics that is so alien — and confounding — their own.

“I understand that Americans are angry and frustrated but we do not need someone in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our frustrations,” the former president said, campaigning for his brother in advance of Saturday's Republican primary. “We need someone who can fix the problems and calms our anger and that’s Jeb Bush.

“Strength is not empty rhetoric. It comes from integrity and character. In my experience, the strongest person isn’t usually the loudest one in the room.”

The former president’s patrician calm stood in stark contrast to the political stylings of Trump, who had sprayed insults for 50 minutes at both Bushes and his top rivals just four hours earlier during a press conference just five miles away. As he did Saturday night, Trump contested Jeb Bush’s point that his brother “kept us safe after 9/11.”

“What does that mean he kept the country safe after 9/11?” Trump said. “What about during 9/11? I was there. I lost a lot of friends that were killed in that building. That’s [like saying] the team scored 19 runs in the first inning, but after that we did well.”

With more than a dozen television cameras pointed at him and 100 members of the media pressing him on the issue, Trump stopped short of saying that Bush was responsible for the 2001 terror attacks that killed more than 3,000 people, which he labeled the “greatest terror attack in the history of the United States.”

“Excuse me, the World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. Came down,” Trump told reporters. “We weren’t safe.”

He also blasted Bush for the war in Iraq.

“The whole thing starts with the war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but the one thing about him: He killed terrorists.”

As much as the Bushes bristle at his coarse brand of politics, they cannot avoid the inconvenient truth that Trump seems more in line with this political moment and this Republican electorate. Fresh off a huge win in New Hampshire, Trump leads the South Carolina polls by 20 points over his nearest rival while Bush is mired in fourth place. When Jeb Bush took the stage after his brother, he, too, didn’t refer to Trump by name, only as “a front-running candidate.”

Bush, finally enlisting his brother to speak about the sobering responsibilities of commanding America’s military and keeping the country safe, is attempting to turn the primary here in this heavy military state into a commander in chief test.

The former president began his first campaign swing of 2016 in Columbia, where the Bush brothers had lunch and took pictures with a group of veterans at an American Legion post. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who hasn’t endorsed a candidate but is a potential vice presidential nominee for Bush or Rubio, also met privately with the former president.

In a state that looks to make-or-break for his candidacy, Jeb Bush is seeking to capitalize on his brother’s popularity, which may not be transitive. While 84 percent of South Carolina Republicans view George W. Bush favorably, Jeb Bush is polling at just 10 percent in the Real Clear Politics average, well behind Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. And a fourth-place finish here could be the beginning of the end if Bush donors, who have waited months for a tangible return on their investment, decide they can’t wait any longer to consolidate behind a clear mainstream alternative to Trump and Cruz and abandon Bush for his former protégé.

Despite his low standing in the polls, Bush’s team remains optimistic that voters will come home to a more serious candidate as George W. Bush encouraged them to do Monday night, introducing his brother as a man of “quiet conviction and core of conscience that cannot be shaken.”

“I think President Bush appearing for Jeb will have a significant impact because the Bush family is beloved and President Bush as an individual is one of the most popular political leaders in the Republican Party throughout the country and particularly in South Carolina,” said Lindsey Graham, the state's senior senator. “I think it reminds people of resolve, determination, the man who brought us together after 9/11 the man who rallied the world to go after a vicious enemy.”

But many of the people who came to see the former president are still undecided with five days before the primary here. And as much as they respect George W. Bush, many struggle with the idea of electing another Bush.

“I think it’s very difficult when you’re looking at the third member of a family serving in that office. Our country wasn’t set up to be dynastic,” said John Carter, an engineer from Summerville.

“I think the one thing about the Bushes and the Clintons having power for a long time, that does sort of rub me the wrong way a little bit,” said Matthew Husband, a student from Mount Pleasant.

Few in the crowd, however, had any interest in Trump. And like the Bushes themselves, they struggle to even understand his surprisingly enduring appeal.

“We must have an awful lot of stupid people in this country that he can suck them in,” said Ann Marron, a retiree from Summerville who is backing Bush. “I think they’re so fixed on having something different that they’re not really thinking about this with a good head. He’s going to be worse than Obama.”

Trump, who held a rally Monday evening in Greenville, spent the morning badgering the Bushes in the Charleston area during a speech at a GOP luncheon and then at the press conference. In both places, Trump also went hard after Cruz, the Texas senator who is polling in second place behind him in South Carolina.

“Ted Cruz is the most dishonest guy I’ve ever met in politics,” Trump said at a Republican luncheon here, explaining that the Texas senator’s campaign just launched new ads claiming that he’s pro-choice, anti-Second Amendment and likely to appoint liberal judges — allegations, Trump insisted, are all untrue.

Trump also revisited Cruz’s controversial tactics in Iowa, where he won the state’s caucuses on Feb. 1 but stoked controversy with his campaign’s controversial mailers threatening voters their neighbors would be informed if they didn’t show up and its last-minute phone calls to Ben Carson supporters wrongly informing them to vote for Cruz because the neurosurgeon was dropping out.

“What he did to Ben Carson was despicable,” Trump told 300 Republicans at the luncheon. “He’s a really bad liar, which is something I hope you’ll watch out for. We’ve got to be very smart, we’ve got to be very careful. You’ve got a very unstable guy in Cruz. He’s nuts.”

AP Photo

Public polls show Trump with a commanding 20-point lead over Cruz in South Carolina, although Cruz’s campaign has been touting new internal numbers showing Trump dropping as a result of Saturday’s debate.

As his press conference began an hour later in Hanahan, a town chosen to highlight Trump’s opposition to relocating Gitmo detainees there, Trump’s campaign blasted out a press release signaling his intent to sue Cruz if he doesn’t take down the attack ads that Trump claims are false.

“One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and, therefore, cannot be President,” Trump said in the release. “If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately. Additionally, the RNC should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me.”

Trump claimed the RNC has defaulted on its pledge to maintain a level playing field, alleging that the organization showed favoritism by distributing most of the tickets to Saturday’s debate to the Bush and Marco Rubio campaigns.

“When somebody is in default, that means the other side can do what you need to do,” Trump said.

Katie Glueck contributed to this report.