In an interview with the New York Times, author Mark K Updegrove describes how the values of the Bush era stand in contrast to the party today

George HW Bush has followed his son, George W Bush, in criticising Donald Trump. The 41st president was more direct than the 43rd, however, saying in a new book that the 45th president is a “blowhard” who is “driven by a certain ego”.

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The New York Times reported the comments, which are contained in a forthcoming book, The Last Republicans by Mark K Updegrove.

“I don’t like him,” the elder Bush is quoted as saying in May 2016. “I don’t know much about him, but I know he’s a blowhard. And I’m not too excited about him being a leader.”

George W Bush gave a speech last month which was largely seen as a coded criticism of Trump, whom he did not name.

“Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children,” the former president said.

Those remarks fed into a brewing Republican civil war, prompting a scornful response from Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist now back at the hard-right Breitbart News website and planning primary challenges against establishment figures.

After a 2016 Republican primary marked by Trump’s harsh attacks on Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who many thought would be the third member of the family to reach the White House, neither President Bush voted for Trump.

George HW Bush told Updegrove he voted for Hillary Clinton, the Times reported. George W Bush said he voted for “none of the above”. He also told the author he first thought Trump’s candidacy wouldn’t last, then worried that he himself would prove to be “the last Republican president”.

The younger Bush was also famously reported to have passed comment on Trump’s “American carnage” inaugural speech in January, labelling it “some weird shit”.

Updegrove told the Times George W Bush’s values “and those shared by his father and Ronald Reagan, they are very much in contrast to the values of the Republican party today, in particular the platform that Donald Trump ran on, which is essentially protectionism and a certain xenophobia.”

Speaking to CNN, Updegrove said: “If you look at the Bush family, it makes perfect sense. Donald Trump is everything that the Bush family is not. George Bush grew up thinking about the greater good. Donald Trump is manifestly narcissistic. It’s part of his brand. And that brand is the antithesis of the Bush brand.”

Trump was in Hawaii on Saturday, preparing to fly to Asia. He did not immediately address the Times report on Twitter.

CNN quoted an unnamed White House official as saying in response to the Bushes’ reported remarks: “If one presidential candidate can disassemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had.”

Following a line of attack used by Trump in the primary – despite recorded evidence that he supported the invasion of Iraq under the younger Bush – the official added that Bush legacy “begins with the Iraq war, one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in American history”.

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Though convention has it that former presidents do not pass comment on their successors’ actions while in office, Trump’s dramatic 10 months in the White House have produced a range of reactions among his predecessors.

In a speech in Richmond, Virginia last month, Barack Obama did not mention Trump by name but said: “Here’s one thing I know: if you have to win a campaign by dividing people, you’re not going to be able to govern them. You won’t be able to unite them later if that’s how you start.”

Speaking to the New York Times, Jimmy Carter was relatively restrained, saying: “The media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about. I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”

Last month, the two Bushes, Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama appeared together at a concert staged in aid of hurricane relief for Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Trump delivered a message by video.