Jeb Bush launches 2016 presidential campaign

On Monday afternoon, Jeb Bush officially announced he will seek the 2016 Republican nomination for the presidency.

"Our country is on a very bad course. And the question is: What are we going to do about it?

"The question for me is: What am I going to do about it? And I have decided: I am a candidate for president of the United States.

"I will campaign as I would serve, going everywhere, speaking to everyone, keeping my word, facing the issues without flinching, and staying true to what I believe," Bush said.

Bush took a few shots at potential opponent Hillary Clinton.

"They are responsible for the slowest economic recovery ever, the biggest debt increases ever, a massive tax increase on the middle class, the relentless buildup of the regulatory state, and the swift, mindless drawdown of a military that was generations in the making,

"I, for one, am not eager to see what another four years would look like under that kind of leadership. The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next.

"Secretary Clinton insists that when the progressive agenda encounters religious beliefs to the contrary those beliefs, quote, 'have to be changed.' That's what she said, and I guess we should at least thank her for the warning," Bush said.

"I know we can fix this. Because I've done it.

"A self-serving attitude can take hold in any capital, just as it once did in Tallahassee. I was a governor who refused to accept that as the normal or right way of conducting the people's business. I will not accept it as the standard in Washington,

"It's still a mystery to me why in these violent times the President a few months ago thought it relevant at a prayer breakfast to bring up the Crusades. Americans don't need lectures on the Middle Ages when we're dealing abroad with modern horrors committed by fanatics.

"From the beginning, our President and his foreign policy team have been so eager to be the history makers that they've failed to be the peace makers.

"With their phone it in foreign policy, the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team is leaving a legacy of crises uncontained. Violence unopposed. Enemies unnamed. Friends undefended. And alliances unraveling.

"This supposedly risk averse administration is also running straight in the direction of the greatest risk of all, military inferiority. It will go on automatically until a president steps in to rebuild our armed forces and take care of our troops and our veterans. And they have my word I will do it," Bush said.