- George W. Bush told Mitt Romney that he thought Rick Perry was dumber than he was.
- "People thought I was dumb," Bush said. "Well, wait till you get a load of this guy."
- The conversation was recounted in the forthcoming book "Thank You for Your Servitude."
Former President George W. Bush didn't have the best things to say about his Texas successor in the governor's mansion when he called up Mitt Romney during the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, according to a new book.
"People thought I was dumb. Well, wait till you get a load of this guy," Bush told Romney, now a Republican US Senator, about then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry, according to a rendition of the exchange in "Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission."
Bush made the comments after Perry got into the 2012 Republican presidential race, according to the author of the book, journalist Mark Leibovich. Perry was lieutenant governor while Bush was governor, and then assumed the Texas governorship when Bush ran for president.
Romney ended up being the 2012 Republican nominee for president but lost to then-President Barack Obama.
Spokespeople for Bush, Perry, and Romney did not return emails seeking comment about the book.
Leibovich's book, which comes out Tuesday, contains numerous inside-the-room tidbits about Trump's presidency and the Republicans in Congress who supported him. Perry ran for president again during the 2016 cycle but lost to Donald Trump. When Trump became president, he nominated Perry to be secretary of energy.
Of Perry, Leibovich writes that he will "never go down as a brilliant historian. Or brilliant anything."
Perry, who was Texas' longest-serving governor, isn't known for being a wonk but was a major political force in Texas.
News reports over the years have said Perry and Bush had a long-simmering feud, though both have denied that it exists and other reports said the acrimony was between their aides.
Several events contributed to the rumors. When Bush was governor he refused to appoint Perry's brother-in-law, Joseph Thigpen, to the Texas appeals court bench. Perry also said when he was running for a third term for governor that Bush wasn't a fiscal conservative, and ahead of that race former President George H.W. Bush endorsed Perry's GOP challenger, then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
"Privately, the former president has spoken of his successor as a political lightweight and someone not all that bright," said a Los Angeles Times article from 2011. "Perry scoffs behind closed doors at Bush's privileged background and popularity among country-club Republicans, suggesting the New England native is a faux Texan."
Bush has made light of his critics' questions about his own intelligence over the years.
"As I like to tell the C students: You too, can be president," he told Southern Methodist University students during a graduation ceremony in 2015.