Jeb Bush shifts focus to national security after Paris attacks
In the wake of the terrorist attack in Paris, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush focused on national security during a campaign swing through South Carolina on Tuesday.
"It's a serious undertaking, it's something that I think as people get closer to the election they begin to think a little more seriously about," Bush told an audience in, Columbia, South Carolina. "Maybe the Paris tragedy accelerated that thought."
The Bush campaign is making the bet that Republican voters will abandon outsider candidates like Ben Carson and Donald Trump as the primary elections get closer and take a more serious tenor.
"This is the war of our times," Bush declared in a speech on Tuesday morning to local community leaders in Columbia, "The notion that somehow Paris is the only place that this would take place I think is foolhardy."
Reflecting the more serious turn the election has taken, he wore a more somber navy suit with a white shirt and blue striped tie that morning rather than the casual black fleece jacket that he'd been wearing lately at campaign stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, before shedding the jacket during two retail stops later in the day.
At an evening town hall in Conway, Bush attacked the comments Secretary of State John Kerry made earlier in the day in Paris that the "rationale" for the Charlie Hebdo attacks were more understandable than the Friday attack.
Repeating Kerry's words, Bush responded with disbelief, "Really? There should be no empathy, and there is no rationale for barbaric Islamic terrorists that want to destroy civilization," leading to cheers from an audience of over three hundred students and locals.
During the town hall a freshman from Coastal Carolina University asked Bush about his stance on Syrian refugees.
"I don't know if the governors have any constitutional basis other than to express disagreement, and they've been effective in doing that, and I think that's been more than proper," Bush said in support of Republican governors calling for a halt in the resettlement of those refugees in their states, "I think there needs to be a full explanation of what the vetting process."
He reiterated his calls for U.S. efforts to focus on Middle Eastern Christian refugees saying, "There are Christians being castigated, persecuted and sadly in some cases beheaded for their love of Jesus. And whether you're religious or not that should be something that should haunt us as a nation. And it does haunt me."
Comments like those have drawn harsh criticism from President Obama, who condemned the idea as a religious test. "When individuals say we should have a religious test and that only Christians, proven Christians, should be admitted - that's offensive and contrary to American values," he said in Manila Wednesday.
He had remarked on Bush's idea Monday, too, casting the idea as "shameful" and a "betrayal of our values."
"The president got after me indirectly on this yesterday, saying somehow it was wrong to say what I just said and not have the same sympathies for Muslims," Bush, aware of the president's criticism, told the audience, "Well I do, we all have sympathies for people that have been uprooted. There are 4 million refugees in a country of 23 million, that's heartbreaking. But we have a duty to protect our country as well."
Unlike some of his Republican rivals, Bush does not rule out allowing in Syrian Muslim refugees if a "proper vetting process" can be demonstrated. He drew a contrast with Chris Christie who said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt that three year old orphans shouldn't be admitted to the country. Bush told reporters, "at a minimum we ought to be bringing in people that have orphans, people that aren't clearly going to be terrorists."
On Wednesday, Bush will deliver a speech outlining his views on defense policy at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. His remarks were originally to be directed at overall defense policy, but in the wake of the Paris attacks, the speech was retooled to emphasize the war against ISIS.
The former Florida governor will blast the Obama administration for cutting military spending and will propose reforms to the Pentagon, citing the attacks in Paris as further reason to combat ISIS, according to excerpts released in advance.
"[I]n the aftermath of the bloodshed in Paris, let it be said that this generation knew the cost of war, but also knew the even greater cost of acquiescence to an enemy with which there is no co-existence," the speech reads. "Radical Islamic terrorists have declared war on the western world. Their aim is our total destruction. We can't withdraw from this threat, nor negotiate with it. We have but one choice: to defeat it."
Bush will also push for a more robust agenda, calling for a policy of "peace through strength."
"In my administration, security for the United States will mean gaining and keeping the edge in every category, old and new," Bush will say in Charleston. "Whether it's our command of the seas, the land, or the air, of space or cyberspace, America's goal should be technological superiority beyond question."