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Bush's biggest donor: Trump a 'bullyionaire'
12/04/2015   By Marc Caputo | POLITICO
1624
Mike Fernandez, a billionaire who has contributed more than $3 million to elect Jeb Bush, has taken out several full page ads attacking Donald Trump. | Getty
 

Calling Donald Trump “a hater” and a “narcissistic BULLYionaire,” Jeb Bush’s biggest donor has decided on his own to take out full page ads trashing the Republican poll leader in newspapers in Miami, Las Vegas and Des Moines.

Mike Fernandez, a billionaire who has contributed more than $3 million to elect Bush, announced his decision Friday after a CNN poll showed Trump dominating the GOP field with 36 percent of the vote while Bush has fallen to 3 percent.

Fernandez said he decided to make the ads on his own out of frustration with Trump and his supporters, whom he describes as “a segment of the electorate who have come to think of Trump as a god, when in fact he is worse than the devil himself.”

Fernandez stopped just short of comparing Trump to a dictator, but the full-page ads he wants to run Dec. 14 make reference to the masses who were swayed in other countries by demagogues during tough times.

“Look at Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Peron in Argentina. When people lose hope, they are susceptible to those who offer to think for them. Today, in our midst, one ‘popular’ man stands first in the polls,” the ad says. “The more divisive and outrageous he is, the more he appeals to some people. I worry as I witness whipped-up crowds emboldening and encouraging forked-tongue hatefulness.”

Fernandez, who arrived in the U.S. as a penniless 12-year-old Cuban immigrant in 1964 and became a self-made health care tycoon, said he’s particularly infuriated with Trump’s rhetoric concerning undocumented immigrants and his opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. But, Fernandez said, Trump’s “hateful” rhetoric extends far beyond immigrants.

Fernandez said he came up with the idea on his own and didn’t share it with the Bush campaign or Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting the former Florida governor.

“This is me talking. This is what I believe in,” Fernandez said. “And there will be more of it. These aren’t the last bullets I’ll shoot.”

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