Jeb Bush: Hillary Clinton's jokes about email server "inappropriate"
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire -- Jeb Bush called Hillary Clinton's recent jokes about her email server "completely inappropriate" on Wednesday and said classified information has likely fallen into the hands of Russia and China because of her decision to run State Department business through a private email account.
"It's probable that the Chinese and Russians have that information, and the United States Congress can't get it," Bush told CBS News after an appearance at an education summit in New Hampshire. "This is a serious problem and she should come clean."
Clinton has joked about the private email controversy twice in a matter of a days, saying last week that she loves Snapchat because "those messages disappear," and on Tuesday claiming not to know how a server would be wiped clean. Asked by reporters if her private server had been cleared of all its data, she responded, "What, like, with a cloth or something?"
Bush, who was on his way to a campaign stop in Manchester, told CBS that Clinton's email scandal stirs up "not so fond memories of distorting and trying to create confusion."
"She should just provide the information come clean with the American people and deal with it," Bush said. "But instead it's always a joke, or a vast right wing conspiracy, or someone else's fault."
The former Florida governor is in the middle of a busy two-day New Hampshire swing, including a town hall Wednesday night at exactly the same time as a town hall close by with the GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump. While he's been quick to welcome Trump into the campaign conversation, Bush disagrees with several of Trump's ideas and criticized the immigration plan Trump released earlier this week. Trump's proposal included a fence that extends across the southern border of the U.S., tripling the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and ending birthright citizenship.
"Trump's immigration plan is not a conservative plan," Bush told CBS News. "It's going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. There's a better way of doing this, where you have border security using the proper tools available to us. Have an e-verify system." Trump also called for a nationwide e-verify system in his immigration plan.
As for the Fourteenth Amendment, which Trump recently declared unconstitutional in its application to birthright citizenship, Bush said he thinks it's a "pretty good amendment."
"It protects people's personal freedom," he continued. "Embedded in that is the right for birthright citizenship, which is a noble thing for our country. I think it's time to take a deep breath here and look at candidates' views on the issues."