Nicole Wallace, who was a White House communications director in George W. Bush’s administration, called on Friday for Mr. Bush to have a late-hour “change of heart” and speak out against former President Donald J. Trump.
Speaking on her “Deadline: White House” program on MSNBC, Ms. Wallace said Mr. Trump’s violent language about former Representative Liz Cheney had pushed her to publicly raise the question she gets “asked more than any other” off the set: “Where is George W. Bush?”
Ms. Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, has emerged as one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent Republican critics, and she has campaigned extensively for his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Her father, Dick Cheney, who served as Mr. Bush’s vice president, has also said he would vote for Ms. Harris.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump criticized Ms. Cheney for her hawkish foreign policy views and said she should be put on a battlefield “with nine barrels shooting at her” — a remark that drew condemnations from a number of leaders. On her program, Ms. Wallace seemed to be imploring her former boss to join that group.
“These are the comments we’re talking about right now in the United States of America from someone running to hold the job he had,” Ms. Wallace said.
Mr. Bush’s daughter Barbara also supports Ms. Harris and has knocked on doors for her in Pennsylvania.
But Mr. Bush has ruled out endorsing in the presidential race, according to his office. Ms. Wallace said she hoped both Mr. Trump’s recent violent language and the endorsement of Ms. Harris by Mr. Bush’s daughter might sway him.
“We have a right to hope that those who have stood for freedom and celebrated those who have protected it might have a last-minute change of heart in the closing hours of this campaign,” Ms. Wallace said on her program.
Ms. Wallace said she had appealed directly to Mr. Bush’s office, and had been told that the former president would continue his silence. But she said that it felt “important” to make her appeal, and then showed a series of decades-old videos of Mr. Bush speaking about freedom.
A spokesman for Mr. Bush, Freddy Ford, said on Friday that Mr. Bush had no comment on Ms. Wallace’s plea. Last month, Mr. Ford said in an email that Mr. Bush “retired from presidential politics many years ago” and would not endorse in the presidential race.
Ms. Wallace said she was delivering her call in the spirit of a lesson Mr. Bush had imparted to her: “Leave everything I know how to do in service of our democracy and freedoms — the things he taught us to cherish — on the field.”
In an interview last week with David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, Ms. Cheney said she could not “explain why George W. Bush hasn’t spoken out.”
“But I think it’s time,” Ms. Cheney said. “And I wish that he would.”
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