Liberals' hatred for President Donald Trump "is triple that" of what they held for President George W. Bush when he was in office, Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer said Tuesday.
"I used to see Bush derangement syndrome on a daily basis," Fleischer told CNBC's "Squawk Box" program. "This is triple that. The hatred for Donald Trump is, face it, he created a part of it. He changes things and speaks in a manner that people aren't used to."
Fleischer said the left started hating Bush when he won the presidency following a legal battle with Democratic rival Al Gore and an Electoral College vote of 271 to 266 to become the president.
Trump, like Bush, won the White House through the Electoral College, not through the popular vote, also adding to liberals' dislike.
Meanwhile, Trump is getting things done and forcing change in Washington, Fleischer said.
"On the other hand, with the immigration refugee order, I think this is one they should have slowed down," Fleischer said. "It would have done much better if they'd gone through what I called four most boring words in government. The intergovernmental review process. It's slow, tedious, but makes for better decisions."
There are some things that can move through faster, said Fleischer, but that deals with the complexity of implementing the plan or policy.
"When you're announcing an executive order, for example, this morning about the LGBT community, no discrimination in the workplace, that's pretty straightforward," said Fleischer.
"When you're announcing something that impacts how people are treated at airports, you better coordinate that with customs, with border control, with all the agencies you meet at an airport. If it's not coordinated properly, it's harder to implement and harder to build support for."
Fleischer also addressed the controversy surrounding ousted assistant Attorney General Sally Yates, was fired Monday night for informing Justice Department attorneys not to fight for the new immigration executive order.
"When George Bush was elected in 2011, the first cabinet meeting, Attorney General Eric Holder from the [Bill] Clinton administration sat in George Bush's first cabinet meeting," said Fleischer.
"He was a holdover from the Clinton era until we got our AG in place. If somebody in that holdover position so principally disagrees with what a president does, the proper course is to resign. Stand your ground, state your case, and resign."
But Yates stayed around long enough to be fired, and "that's just not proper," said Fleischer, "especially considering the fact that the Office of Legal Counsel, the Justice Department, said what President Trump did was lawful. So this is an ideological position, not a constitutional one."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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