On Sunday December 5th, State of the Union with Candy Crowley will feature an exclusive interview with the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush.
The interview airs this Sunday, December 5th, on CNN at 9AM and 12PM EST.
Text excerpts from the interview are below.
President Bush on his relationship with the Clintons:
CROWLEY: You have often referred to Bill Clinton, and you talk about his relationship with your father and how it developed, and your mother as well, and he’s your brother from another mother.
BUSH: Laughter
CROWLEY: What does that make Hillary Clinton to the Bush family?
BUSH: My sister-in-law
CROWLEY: Interesting. Do you think that your brother could run against your sister-in-law?
BUSH: Yeah and I think he’d beat her.
CROWLEY: You do?
BUSH: I do, I do.
CROWLEY: She’s formidable
BUSH: Very much so, no question, so is he though.
CROWLEY: So you’ll take that bet?
BUSH: Absolutely.
President Bush on race relations:
CROWLEY: a lot of people say that race seems to be more of a problem in what a lot of people term a post racial presidency
CROWLEY: when your saw what happened in the streets of New York in the video, what did you think?
BUSH: I thought how sad. You know the verdict was hard to understand um but I hadn’t seen all the details but it’s sad that race continues to play such uhh an emotional, divisive part of life I remember back when I was a kid in the seventies there was race riots with cities being burned and I do think we’ve improved. I had dinner with Condi the other night and we talked about this subject and yeah she just said you gotta understand that there are a lot of black folks around that are incredibly, more and more distrusting of law enforcement which is a shame because law enforcement’s job is to protect everybody
President Bush on Jeb Bush’s prospects in 2016:
BUSH: When you’re weighing the presidency you think – do I fear success? In other words. Can I handle it if I win? You know on paper it seems like, you know, maybe an easy task. On the other hand when you really start thinking about the implications of being president some people go. ‘Well – I’m not sure I can handle that’ and therefore back off. The other thing about it is. Do you fear failure? And Jeb doesn’t, nor does he fear success by the way. One reason is because he was the able governor of Florida. The final consideration of course is what you just brought up, the family, and he’s seen what it’s like to be the son of a president. He’s seen what it’s like to be the brother of a president. And therefore he’s being very — he is not rushing into running for the presidency. I have no clue where his head is now. By the way people say ‘convince your brother to run.’ You can’t convince him to run only he can make the decision and pushing him doesn’t help by the way.