Donald Trump's policy agenda was raked over the coals by former President George W. Bush during a private fundraiser in Cincinnati.
And Bush's trashing of the Republican presidential nominee's policies of "isolationism, nativism and protectionism" was delivered without him once mentioning Trump's name, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Before an audience of 400 at the closed-door fundraiser for Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, Bush said he had been reflecting on threats against American exceptionalism, said four people who attended, according to The Journal.
"It was an interesting exercise of statecraft," Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state, told the newspaper.
"No one could say he directly spoke in attack mode against Donald Trump. Neither could anybody miss the fact that he thought there were some cutting-edge issues that Trump is advancing that need to be scrutinized and debated."
Trump has not been endorsed by Bush, his brother, Jeb, or his father, George H.W. Bush.
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