Windsor High grad Ivy Ziedrich’s face-off with Jeb Bush goes viral

A former Windsor High School debate team captain was thrust into the national spotlight this week with the force that only a feisty exchange with a likely presidential candidate could generate.

Ivy Ziedrich, 19, said to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: “Your brother created ISIS.”

Bush’s brother, of course, is George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. Ziedrich confronted Jeb Bush on Wednesday after he said during a speech at a town-hall-style meeting in Reno that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was the product of President Barack Obama’s Middle East polices.

But Ziedrich, who graduated from Windsor High in 2013 and is studying political science at the University of Nevada, took issue with that claim because she believed that the forces that led to the creation of ISIS stem back to President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.

“It’s frustrating to see politicians ignore the origins of our conflicts abroad and use current foes as excuses for creating new ones!” Ziedrich wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

Those who know Ziedrich have said they are not particularly surprised the outspoken and inquisitive woman had the courage to speak up to a national political figure.

“We knew she had this potential; we saw it at a very young age,” said her mother, Janet Ziedrich.

Since the national attention, Ivy Ziedrich has said her political views don’t align with her upbringing in a conservative Republican family. Longtime Sonoma County residents, Janet and Peter Ziedrich recently moved to rural Oregon.

Asked about family conversations at the dinner table, her mother chuckled.

“They were often loud and exciting because everybody had something to say,” Janet Ziedrich said. “We raised Ivy to be a thinker, and she doesn’t always think the way we do, and that is perfectly OK.”

Windsor debate coach Bryan St. Amant said he wasn’t surprised his former captain spoke her mind in such a public manner.

“I’m proud of her. She was just being her,” Amant said. “I bet this is exciting and frightening at the same time, to get national attention. But I’m proud of her to be willing to stand up and say what she believes in a public forum.”

A video of Ziedrich’s exchange with Bush went viral, spiraling into a social media frenzy that has apparently dogged the student in the days since. Ziedrich asked all media requests to be emailed to the Young Democrats of Nevada, but the chapter did not respond Thursday to several emails requesting an interview.

“I felt the need to hold (Jeb Bush) accountable for the lies he was saying,” Ziedrich said Thursday during a live interview on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.”

The MSNBC appearance was just one of a series of national interviews the poised and passionate collegian has given since Wednesday. Other interviews have been given to the New York Times and GQ Magazine.

Ziedrich initiated a conversation with Bush by introducing herself before quickly launching into her concern about his speech. The exchange follows.

Ziedrich: What I wanted to talk with you about was the fact that you said ISIS was created because we don’t have enough presence (after) pulling out of the Middle East. However, actually the threat of ISIS was created by the Iraqi Coalition Authority, which ousted the entire government of Iraq. It was when 30,000 individuals who were part of the Iraqi military - they were forced out. They had no employment, they had no income, yet they were left with access to all of the same arms and weapons. Your brother created ISIS.

Bush: Is that a question?

Ziedrich: You don’t need to be pedantic to me, sir.

Bush: Pedantic? Wow.

Ziedrich: You could just answer my question.

Bush: So what is the question?

Ziedrich: My question is why are you saying that ISIS was created by us not having a presence in the Middle East when it’s pointless wars - when we sent young men to die for the idea of American exceptionalism? It’s this idea - like, why are you spouting nationalistic rhetoric to get us involved in more wars?

Bush: We respectfully disagree … because I think when we left Iraq there was a security … Al-Qaida had been taken out, there was a fraudulent system that could have been brought up to create, to eliminate the sectarian violence, and we had an agreement that the president could have signed. It would have kept 10,000 troops, which is less than what we have in Korea. It could have created the stability that would have allow for Iraq to progress. The net result was, the opposite occurred because immediately that void was filled. And so, look, you can rewrite history all you want, but the simple fact is that we’re in a much more unstable place because America pulled back.

(At that point, Bush thanked her and walked away.)

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.