Jeb Bush on the Campaign
COSTELLO: Jeb Bush may be down, but if you ask him, he's far from out. Despite sliding poll numbers, Bush isn't holding back. He's criticizing his rivals and showing off his confident side. During a recent one-on-one with CNN, Bush recognized that for him to win he needs a campaign reboot. Here's Jamie Gangel.</s>JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: I have some good news for you. You are working with lowered expectations.</s>JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.</s>GANGEL: No way to go. Does that in some way free you up?</s>BUSH: To a certain extent. I always knew this was going to be hard. I never felt like I was a frontrunner because we hadn't earned it. We haven't, you know, just starting out on the journey, you've got to go earn it. I've got to get better at debating, I guess, or performing, whatever that's called, and I will. I'm a grinder. I'm very competitive. And so I feel good about where we are.</s>GANGEL: What is that -- what -- you keep saying I'm a grinder. What does that mean?</s>BUSH: That means -- I described it as, I eat nails before I have breakfast. I'm -- I am focused. I am competitive. I'm -- I set high expectations on myself. I knew this was going to be hard.</s>GANGEL: Donald Trump is tweeting out every two seconds. This morning he said you should quit. He said all the candidates should quit, except for --</s>BUSH: Except him?</s>GANGEL: Except for him. Do you think an old fashioned guy who wants to be a doer, who wants to be a fixer, is really what people are looking for?</s>BUSH: Desperate for it. This is the real world. Now, in the pundit world, you know, where it's all about this kind of bizarre tweeting out things that aren't relevant to anybody's real life, you know, that's another subject. I'm not going to win over the punditry class for sure, but I -- I know I can win over people that aspire to a better life for themselves and their family. And as it relates to Donald, you know, he's run for president twice and quit. And I've run for governor in the biggest swing state and won twice. I know how to win. I've done it. I actually know how to govern, which is going to be an attribute when we get closer to the election.</s>GANGEL: So for the record, for Donald Trump, you're not quitting?</s>BUSH: No. I mean, what -- do we have to talk about Donald Trump? No, I'm not quitting. He's entertaining. He's fun. He says really funny things in the breaks in the debate, but I'm running for president of the United States. And it's a serious endeavor. I do it with joy. It -- there's a lot of fun parts of it for sure.</s>GANGEL: Marco Rubio, he is now rising in the policy. Your former protegee, in the debate you went after him for missing votes, but he hit back. And some people think he got the better of the moment. Was it a mistake to attack him on that?</s>BUSH: Here -- here's -- here's my point. People that are serving need to show up and work, period, over and out.</s>GANGEL: So it wasn't a mistake?</s>BUSH: I just think people need to show up and work.</s>GANGEL: I understand. But this is a campaign. You got to beat these other guys. So do you keep attacking? Is --</s>BUSH: I'm not attacking to say someone should show up and work. Do you get paid when you don't show up?</s>GANGEL: No.</s>BUSH: I mean, come on, does -- does anybody in this room get paid when they decide, oh, well, I'm going to go do something else. You know, Rand Paul is -- got a pretty good attendance record. He's running for president as well. You can make an accommodation. The people of the state of Florida expect people to show up and work when they elect them. It's not a criticism. It's just a simple fact.</s>GANGEL: But you're going to keep saying it?</s>BUSH: That people ought to show up and work?</s>GANGEL: That Marco Rubio --</s>BUSH: Yes. Yes.</s>GANGEL: You're going to keep --</s>BUSH: Yes. It's not a criticism.</s>GANGEL: OK. Donald Trump. You have to get back to him one more time. He just called Marco Rubio a lightweight and he said Vladimir Putin would eat him for lunch. Do you think that's fair?</s>BUSH: No, it's not fair. He's a -- look, Marco's a capable guy. He's a talented politician. Here's what I think. I think I'm the best qualified to be president.</s>GANGEL: But is Marco Rubio ready to be --</s>BUSH: I'm the best qualified guy to be president.</s>GANGEL: You're not going to answer the question?</s>BUSH: I -- if you're comparing me to Donald Trump, I'm -- I'm better qualified to be president.</s>GANGEL: Are you -- is Marco Rubio --</s>BUSH: I'm better qualified than anybody else running for president and it's not -- I'm not pushing people down when I say that. And if it makes you feel better, everybody on the Republican stage is better than Hillary Clinton. There's a low bar though.</s>GANGEL: You have said you have grave concerns about Donald Trump. You watch firsthand your brother, your father be commander in chief.</s>BUSH: Yes.</s>GANGEL: Are you comfortable with Donald Trump as commander in chief?</s>BUSH: I'm not comfortable with some of the things he says, particularly about Syria, where he one week says that, let ISIS take out Assad and then the Russians come in and he praises Putin and says, let -- let Russia take care of ISIS. It's -- it's a reactive kind of mode that somehow I'm the big guy in the room, I'll just figure it out as I go along. Foreign policy needs to be under gured (ph) with a settle of principles.</s>GANGEL: Do you -- do you --</s>BUSH: And so I think he's going to have to learn, if he's serious about this, you know, to be able to get your foreign policy advice from the shows is probably not the best way to be ready to be president.</s>COSTELLO: With me now, Jamie Gangel. He's the most qualified to be president?</s>GANGEL: He is. He is.</s>COSTELLO: That's what he said.</s>GANGEL: He's on message. He's on message.</s>COSTELLO: He stayed on message. I was just wondering, he seems to be exuding more confidence, especially in your interview, but you also asked him about his family. Has he improved with the answers as far as his family is concerned?</s>GANGEL: You know, I think when he spoke about his family, look, they are very disappointed about the poll numbers. There's a new poll out today. Quinnipiac has him at 4 percent, falling from 8 percent. So they're very frustrated. But this is a family that knows politics. So he likes to say, oh, my father is throwing things at the TV. But he talked in a way I've never heard him speak before. He said he hoped he wasn't letting them down. And I asked him about his brother and whether his brother had any advice for him.</s>BUSH: His advice is to be patient, stick with it. At the end of the day, they're going to -- people are going to start figuring out who's going to be president. Who's going to sit behind the big desk, to use his terminology. And it's encouraging to hear him say that because he knows. He's been through ups and downs.</s>GANGEL: Right.</s>BUSH: You know, that's just the way it is.</s>GANGEL: They have been through ups and downs. But the -- I don't think anyone in the family going into this expected that he would be in this place, that Donald Trump would be doing what he's doing, Carson. This is not the political climate that his brother ever ran in or his father ever ran in or he ever ran in when he ran for governor.</s>COSTELLO: You're right about -- certainly a different climate this time around. Jamie Gangel, thanks so much. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a legendary movie director takes on police brutality and faces massive backlash. Quentin Tarantino finally speaks out about the controversy. We'll tell you what he said, next.