Donald Rumsfeld On George H.W. Bush Voting For Hillary Clinton: 'He's Up In Years'

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took a shot at George H.W. Bush’s age on Thursday after being asked in an MSNBC interview whether he was surprised that the 92-year-old former president was supporting Hillary Clinton  in November.

MSNBC: Are you surprised?

Rumsfeld: No.

MSNBC: Why?

Rumsfeld : Oh, he’s up in years.

MSNBC: So are you.

Rumsfeld: But he’s up in years, and he obviously comes from a totally different cut than Donald Trump . He gets his choice and if that’s true, he’s made his choice, then that’s fine, he can go do what he wants to do.

It’s not the first time the 84-year-old Rumsfeld, who served under George W. Bush, swiped at the elder Bush by invoking his age. After George H.W. Bush called Rumsfeld an “arrogant fellow ” who served his son “badly” in a biography last year, the former secretary of defense told NBC News the elder Bush was “getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own decisions.”

Rumsfeld endorsed GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump earlier this year, calling him a “known unknown ,” a famous phrase he used in 2002 in response to a question about the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Asked in the MSNBC interview whether he believed Trump was truthful, Rumsfeld applied the same logic in a comparison with Clinton .

“I think truthfulness and believability,” he said, before taking a long pause. “Truthfulness is important. I think he’s not untruthful. And I think she is.”

Earlier this week, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway also conveniently snuck in a reference to the elder Bush’s age when asked to respond to his choice for president.

“Well, I respect the 92-year old former president very much and his decision,” she said on CNN, “and I think that Americans are very grateful to the Bush family for their public service, that’s his right.”

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar , rampant xenophobe , racist , misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.