Jeb Bush “appeared to modify his public comments about Indiana’s ‘religious freedom’ law on Wednesday in a closed-door Silicon Valley fund-raiser, telling a small group of potential supporters that a ‘consensus-oriented’ approach would have been better at the outset,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Bush’s comments were strikingly different in tone and in scope from what he said on Monday night in an interview with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. In that interview he praised Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana for doing the ‘right thing’ and said that the new law was similar to one in Florida and to a law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.”
First Read: “The problem for Bush is that all of this only feeds the narrative that conservatives can’t trust him on these types of issues — compared with the rest of the GOP field. It also cuts against the identity he has created for himself — as someone who prefers running a general-election campaign instead of a race to please the base. It’s a tricky place to be in, because it ultimately ends up pleasing no one. “

