"I’m his primary target, and I’m doing so poor in the polls, according to everybody, right? Well, why is that? Why is he going after me each and every day?" the former governor of Florida asked rhetorically of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. | AP Photo Jeb: Trump 'fears me'

The reason for Donald Trump's continued attacks against Jeb Bush? According to Bush, it's because "he fears me."

“I think he is a master at manipulation, and I find it amusing on one level that he constantly attacks me," Bush said Tuesday in an interview with "CBS This Morning."


Trump has for months slammed Bush as "low energy," mocking him for virtually every personality trait and political position, including his defense of his brother, former President George W. Bush, who began campaigning for him this week in South Carolina. Trump has accelerated his verbal attacks in recent days on the former president and his administration's failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, saying at a press conference Monday (and in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday) that the Bush claim that he kept the country safe after 9/11 is akin to a baseball team yielding 19 or 20 runs in the first inning and then playing well for the rest of the game.

"I’m his primary target, and I’m doing so poor in the polls, according to everybody, right? Well, why is that? Why is he going after me each and every day?" the former governor of Florida asked rhetorically. "It’s because he fears me, because I’m the only guy standing up to him. I think he is not going to be the conservative party’s nominee."

Bush also said that Trump's record does not suggest one that is a conservative and that he would continue speaking out against the Manhattan businessman. Asked whether he ever considered just letting Trump speak and not respond, Bush said he does but then reconsiders.

"Then I get back to thinking, he’s hijacked my party," he added, remarking that he has been a conservative for his adult life. "Someone has to take a stand.”

Trump's national spokeswoman defended her candidate's recent assertions later Tuesday morning, attempting to explain the difference between saying the 43rd president did not keep the country safe and flat-out blaming Bush for 9/11.

"Mr. Trump did not say that it was George Bush’s fault. What he said is that George Bush didn’t keep us safe," Katrina Pierson told MSNBC.

In specifying what Trump meant when discussing safety, Pierson referred to Trump's campaign launch "on very serious issues, like border security, building a wall, watching the visas, deportations and stopping Muslim extremism from coming into the country."

"When you’re talking about Donald Trump’s standards of safety, he’s right," Pierson said. "Those things were not in place when George Bush was president.”

Pierson has previously linked Jeb Bush to 9/11, remarking on multiple occasions that some of the hijackers trained in his state at the time he was governor.