Jeb Bush’s campaign on Tuesday put out a video highlighting his hurricane response record as governor of Florida as the nation marks the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
But at one point, the campaign spot features Bush standing next to then-Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown, one of the most infamous figures of the George W. Bush administration’s widely criticized response to the disaster.
The two-minute video features clips of hurricanes and Bush back when he was governor, interspersed with expert testimonials about Bush’s leadership during disasters, which frequently affect the state he governed in the early to mid-2000s.
Roughly 50 seconds into the spot, there is a clip of Bush standing with a collection of men in a response center, praising his team.
“We have the best emergency response team on the ground, in the country and in the world,” Bush says in the clip, as Brown stands to his immediate left.
Brown would later become the face of the federal government’s perceived inability to adequately respond to the massive hurricane that killed more than 1,800 people.
It was later revealed that Brown wrote an email the morning of the hurricane asking a colleague, “Can I quit now?”
Soon after the disaster struck, Brown was immortalized as the subject of George W. Bush’s praise when the president said, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
The Bush campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jeb Bush has faced multiple questions about his brother’s record in the Iraq War and has attempted, at times awkwardly, to distinguish himself as his own man while still embracing the legacy of his political family. But he hasn’t yet faced serious questions about Katrina or his hurricane track record.
