Jeb Bush Says Pick Rubio, Not Me, For VP

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is putting to rest speculation that he may be chosen as Mitt Romney’s running mate in the wake of comments he made saying he would “consider it.”

“He is not a candidate for VP,” Bush’s spokeswoman Jaryn Emhof told ABC News in an e mail, adding that the comments to Newsmax, where he said he would “consider it” if Romney called, were “taken out of context.”

In an e mail to ABC News’ Miami affiliate, WPLG’s Senior Political Reporter Michael Putney, Bush himself echoed the statement saying, “I didn’t say it right and it was taken out of context. Nothing to talk about.”

Friday, Bush told Bloomberg in an e mailed statement, “I am not going to be the veep nominee…Lay that to rest.” Emhof confirmed those comments to ABC News.

In the interview with Newsmax Thursday, Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush, and the brother of former President George W. Bush, said he would “consider it” if Romney came calling, but these are the comments he is now saying were “taken out of context.”

“Well I’d consider it, but I doubt I’ll get a call, and I don’t know if it’s the right thing for me to do. I didn’t run for president for a similar kind of reason, so I’m all in to try to help him get elected,” Bush said.

In the statement to Bloomberg, Bush said “I guess I wasn’t clear enough.”

In the original interview with Newsmax, Bush said Romney should pick Marco Rubio calling him “probably the best” candidate for vice president.

“Well, I can’t speak for Gov. Romney, and I can’t speak for Sen. Rubio, but if I was on both sides of that conversation I would ask – and I would hope that Marco would accept,” Bush told Newsmax. “There’s a lot of things in between that may not make that happen, but I am a great admirer of Mitt Romney’s and I’m a huge fan of Marco Rubio’s, and I think the combination would be extraordinary.”

{Yahoo News/Matzav.com Newscenter}