Billionaire Cuban immigrant and top Bush donor slams Trump as 'bullyionaire' in newspaper ads
LatestA Cuba-born billionaire and the biggest donor to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign has taken out a series of full-page newspaper ads slamming Republican frontrunner Donald Trump as a “hater” and saying, “It is beyond me how we are engaging this BULLYionaire in such a serious conversation.”
Mike Fernandez, chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, a Miami-based equity firm, has run the ads over the past few days in newspapers in Miami, Des Moines and Las Vegas. Fernandez, who immigrated from Cuba when he was 12, writes, “I worry as I witness whipped-up crowds emboldening and encouraging fork-tongue hatefulness.”
The ads essentially pit two billionaires against each other. The full-page ads mark an increasingly aggressive and public reaction to Trump’s campaign by prominent Republican backers. Trump has not publicly responded to the ads.
Fernandez explains he took out the ads to warn voters about Trump’s rhetoric, comparing the language used by the Trump campaign to that used by “despotic leaders.”
“Look at Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Peron in Argentina,” he writes. “When people lose hope, they are susceptible to those who offer to think for them.”
Fernandez told Politico, which first reported the ads, that he was using them to voice his own opinion. He said he did not alert the Bush campaign about his plans before they were published.
Fernandez voices particular frustration with Trump’s comments about immigration.
“I write as an immigrant, exiled from the tyranny of a dictatorship,” he wrote. “My family arrived on these shores when I was just 12, bringing nothing except the willingness to work hard and a deep believe in the promise of America. We started all over. We succeeded. We helped others to succeed.”
Under a section headlined “Let Us Be Guided By Wisdom” Fernandez adds, “never let fear drive us or divide us.” He also writes, “accept diversity as our forefathers were themselves accepted in this new world.”
See the full ad here. h/t Politico.