Jeb Bush said his father George H.W. Bush was "stronger than an ox" and would be out of the hospital soon.
The former Florida governor made the remarks about the former president while speaking at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island just days after the funeral of his mother Barbara Bush, NECN reported. The former first lady died at 92 at her home in Houston on April 17.
George H.W. Bush, 93, who his son called the "greatest man alive," was hospitalized this week after contracting an infection that had spread to his blood but was taken out of intensive care, NECN said. He was expected to return home on Friday.
Mild blood infections don't always develop into the more serious condition known as sepsis, Dr. Coburn Allen, an infectious disease specialist with the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Houston Chronicle earlier in the week.
"It sounds like he was septic at first because they said he was stabilized — and generally if they say you're stabilized it means you weren't at one point," Allen told the newspaper. "Generally if you get through the unstable part with a blood stream infection, you don't go back to unstable so it's likely he'll recover completely."
The Chronicle said the elder Bush had shown progress after he was transported to Houston Methodist Hospital on Monday, a day after his wife's funeral. Family spokesman Jim McGrath issued a statement on Twitter Wednesday on his condition.
George H.W. Bush issued a statement himself on his Twitter account Wednesday, thanking people for their support during Barbara Bush's funeral.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.