Heilemann: Jeb Bush ‘Clearly Frustrated’ by Donald Trump

ROSE: “Bloomberg managing editor John Heilemann is with us. John, good morning.

HEILEMANN: “Good morning.”

ROSE: “What do you think of Jeb Bush firing back?”

HEILEMANN: “Look, when they had their dueling town halls in New Hampshire, this week, it was like Technicolor Trump, black and white Bush. The next day Bush gets up and does this strong attack on Trump. He is clearly frustrated but more important in some ways than he attacking Trump is the way he's attacking Trump which serves another purpose for Bush. He’s saying I’m conservative. There is a lot of people in the Republican Party, in the Republican base, who don’t think Bush is conservative enough. He’s accomplishing two different things, taking on Trump and also trumpeting his own conservative credentials.

WARD: “Is that getting any traction though or is he hurting himself by using terms like ‘anchor babies’ or –“

HEILEMANN: “Twenty-four hours later, it’s hard to know whether it’s getting traction or not. And the ‘anchor babies’ thing could be a big problem for Jeb Bush, just like Trump’s immigration plan which seems to be pulling further to the right on immigration, could be a big problem for the party in the general election but for all these people right now, their bigger concern is Donald Trump is front-runner, how do I’ll get to be the nominee. They’ve got solve that problem before they get solved the second problem.”