George W. Bush ‘disgusted’ by attack on Capitol, calls attackers ‘hostile forces’

WASHINGTON — Former President George W. Bush said the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol left him “disgusted” and “disturbed” — yet still optimistic about the resilience of American democracy.

“I was disgusted . ... I was sick to my stomach, to see our nation’s Capitol being stormed by hostile forces, and it really disturbed me,” he said in an interview with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith that streamed online Thursday. “I’m still disturbed when I think about it, and it undermines the rule of law.”

Those “hostile forces” were fellow Americans — supporters of Donald Trump who believed his fabrications about being cheated out of a second term, a claim Bush rejects.

“No,” Bush said when asked if he believes that Democrats stole the election. “All elections have some kind of improprieties. … The results of this election, though, were confirmed when Joe Biden got inaugurated as president.”

Bush, Texas’ governor when he won the White House in 2000, pitched himself to voters as a “uniter, not a divider.” The GOP has evolved dramatically since then, and Bush let it be known in 2016 that Trump did not collect his vote.

He was among the first high profile Republicans to publicly congratulate Biden, honoring the tradition of a peaceful transition of power that Trump flouted.

“He’s off to a good start, it looks like, and hopefully this anger will work its way out of the system,” Bush said.

He refrained from condemning Trump for his defiance, and said that despite the assaults on democracy in the Trump era — political and, on Jan. 6, violent and literal — the system survived.

“Checks and balances work ... The courts work,” Bush said. “I thought the system worked fine.”

He pointed to the huge voter turnout as a sign of heightened engagement, though he acknowledged that “there’s a lot of anger in the system” that naturally raises concern about the future of democracy.

“Politics has always been rough,” Bush said. “History in the United States has shown these populist movements begin to, you know, fritter [out] over time.”

Bush and Smith taped the interview on Feb. 24 for the South by Southwest Online 2021 festival.

They also spoke about the current immigration debates, and touched on baseball, a topic that Bush, a former Texas Rangers owner, is always happy to discuss.

Bush agreed when asked if he views it as a terrible idea to put a runner on second base at the start of extra innings, a new rule from Major League Baseball intended to shorten games that end in a tie after nine innings.