George W. Bush's commerce secretary announced he would back Hillary Clinton instead of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
"I'm not thinking about (it as) a Republican, I'm thinking about (it as) a U.S. citizen," Carlos Gutierrez said on CNN. "I think at some point, you have to put the party aside and say what's best for the country? I don't want to live in a society that I think Donald Trump will create."
Gutierrez also said he had concerns about Trump's economic plans.
"His plan, I love the tax cuts, I'm a Republican, but then he has this sort of import substitution strategy, which is a strategy like an underdeveloped country, very poor countries think that way," he said. "(The idea) that we have to substitute our imports. That would be a disaster."
Gutierrez is currently chairman of the Alrbright Stoneridge Group, which is co-chaired by former President Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeline Albright. He was CEO of the Kellogg Company when Bush tapped him for commerce secretary.
Gutierrez, whose family emigrated from Cuba when he was a child, also helped create the super PAC Republicans for Immigration Reform. Gutierrez was Mitt Romney's Hispanic outreach director and was concerned about some of Romney's rhetoric during the 2012 campaign.
Gutierrez donated $2,150 to the super PAC in 2013 around the time when the initial push for immigration reform was being debated in the Senate. He also donated $25,000 to Right to Rise USA, a super PAC supportive of Bush's brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
