Barbara Bush, who once said she thought there had been "enough Bushes" in the White House, is no longer apprehensive about her son Jeb's Republican presidential bid.
But the former first lady did have some advice for him in an interview with CBS's Norah O'Donnell that aired Friday morning.
"He's got the same values that America seems to have lost. ... He's almost too polite," Bush said. "I don't advise him, but if I gave him advice, I would say, 'Why don't you interrupt like the other people do?'"
"I've gotten better at interrupting, Mom, come on," Jeb Bush responded. Bush is indeed trying to interrupt more in the primary debates.
"He's so polite. We brought him up that way," Bush's mother said. "And he does not brag like some people we know."
"Who are you talking about?" O'Donnell asked.
"I can't remember," she responded wryly.
When pushed to say, explicitly, that she's talking about billionaire businessman Donald Trump, who frequently mocks her son, the former first lady said she's "not getting into a spitting match with him" because "he can spit farther than I can."
Pressure is mounting on Bush from his donors to place near the top of the field in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Bush currently trails Trump, Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in HuffPost Pollster's aggregation of polls in the state.
Coming to his aid, Bush's mother taped a campaign ad running in the Granite State in which she says: "When push comes to shove, people are going to realize Jeb has real solutions rather than talking about how popular they are or how great they are."
O'Donnell noted that Trump ridiculed the ad in a tweet.
"I don't need her help," Bush said in response.
"Putin endorsed [Trump], for heaven sakes. Putin, the killer. Putin, the worst," Barbara Bush said.
Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
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