Former President George W. Bush says he dislikes the racial tensions simmering in the early days of President Trump’s administration.
“Yes, I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like people feeling alienated,” he told “People” magazine Monday. "Nobody likes that.”
“On the other hand, we’ve had these periods before,” George W. Bush added, sitting alongside his wife Laura. "We’ve always had a way to come out of it. I’m more optimistic than some. I’m optimistic about where we’ll end up.”
Bush also predicted that Trump will ultimately shed the bruising rhetoric of the 2016 presidential campaign for a more diplomatic demeanor.
“People campaign and then the job’s different when they get in there. This job has a way of bringing reality to each president’s situation and that’s going to happen now.”
He added that he does not feel compelled to assume a more active leadership role one month after the start of Trump’s presidency.
“No. When President Obama got elected, friends would call: 'You must speak out, you must do this, you must do that,’” he said of his successor’s early presidency.
“Turns out, other people are doing the same thing this time,” Bush added. "I didn’t feel like speaking out before because I didn’t want to complicate the job and I’m not going to this time.”
Reports emerged earlier Monday that another wave of bomb threats had targeted Jewish community centers and schools nationwide.
Jewish community centers in states including Indiana, Pennsylvania and New York were all purportedly targeted, as were Jewish day schools in Maryland and Virginia.
Earlier this month, the JCC Association of America reported that 11 Jewish community centers were menaced by bomb threats, all of which were eventually proved to be hoaxes.
Trump last week condemned anti-Semitism such as the bomb threats amid concerns the frequency of such incidents is rising.
“Anti-Semitism is horrible and it’s going to stop and it has to stop,” he said Feb. 21 at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
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