NEWSJenna Bush Hager Says Grandfather George H.W. Bush 'Became A Bit Of A Surrogate Father' To President Bill Clinton
Nov. 15 2022, Published 11:30 p.m. ET
Better together!
Today maven and former First Daughter Jenna Bush Hager got candid about bridging bipartisan politics earlier this week, sharing the heartwarming story behind her grandfather Republican President George H.W. Bush’s unlikely friendship with his successor and one-time political foe, Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Just one week after early November’s midterm elections, the TV staple revealed that her famous grandpa managed to strike up a close relationship with Clinton, who defeated him in the 1992 election, a testament to the power of collaborating across the political aisle.
“President Clinton beat my grandfather and my grandfather was crushed,” the daytime TV staple recalled of her grandpa’s early ‘90s re-election bid while detailing the importance of less "divisive" interactions between different political parties. “He ran a hard campaign, and he was crushed about it.”
Despite these hard feelings, it seems 41 ultimately managed to process his loss, with his former rival at the polls ultimately becoming one of his close friends — thanks to a little help from Hager’s father, former President George W. Bush.
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“Then after a few years, they were put together by my dad to raise funds for a bunch of different things,” the NBC staple recalled. “He became a bit of a surrogate father for him.”
Yet Hager isn’t the only person to tout the special nature of Bush Sr.’s friendship with Clinton — Back in 2012, authors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy commended the pair’s unlikely relationship as being truly one of a kind
“No relationship is quite like the bond between George H.W. Bush and the man who defeated him in 1992,” they wrote in their book, The Presidents Club, “Bush would go so far as to suggest more than once that he might be the father that Clinton had always lacked — a notion that the younger man did not dispute.”
Daily Mail reported on Hager’s recent comments about her grandfather’s bipartisan friendship with Clinton.
