George W. Bush picked up a call from his daughter and found himself on live television. Jenna Bush Hager had to break the news during the September 17th episode of Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, after co-host Sheinelle Jones persuaded her to try reaching him.
In the Today clip, the hosts remind each other to keep his phone number out of view while a crew member helps them get ready. Bush Hager puts the call on speaker, holds the phone near a microphone and cautions that her father might not answer.
He does, and she quickly warns him that he is on TV. “I’ve been trying to avoid that,” Bush replies. He stays on the line, though, and soon has a favor to ask: Could his daughter help him sell his next book?
After hanging up, Bush Hager said that hearing her father announce he was glad she’d called had made her wonder, “Am I grounded?” Nearly two decades earlier, she had asked him much the same thing during another televised phone call, when he was still president.
Ellen Had Put Jenna on the Spot Before
The hosts had been watching Bush Hager’s 2007 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. DeGeneres wanted to know whether the president’s daughter could simply pick up the phone and reach him whenever she wanted. Bush Hager said she could, and DeGeneres suggested they give it a try.
Bush Hager agreed to call her mother’s line, but worried aloud about getting in trouble. She wanted to be certain the cameras wouldn’t record the number she dialed and joked that she might lose out on everything she’d asked for that Christmas. She eventually reached Laura Bush, who said she was sitting with her husband.
When the president came on, his daughter asked, “Are you mad?” He assured her, “No, not at all. I want to talk to you.” Bush wished the audience a merry Christmas and told his daughter he loved her before they said goodbye. Bush Hager then told DeGeneres, “See? I wasn’t in trouble.”
Back in the Today studio, Jones wanted to repeat the experiment. Bush Hager protested that her former co-host Hoda Kotb had pulled a similar stunt, according to People. A crew member brought over her phone, and she agreed to make the call.
Bush Had Nominated Sheinelle’s Father to the Federal Bench
Bush said he hadn’t met Jones and would like to shake her hand. Jones told him she’d been struck by the old clip of a busy president taking a call from his daughter. Bush Hager then mentioned a connection between the two families that her father hadn’t recognized.
Jones’ father, C. Darnell Jones II, had been nominated by Bush in 2008 and became a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Jones confirmed that Bush had nominated her dad, drawing a surprised response from the former president. He said her father must have been a good man.
Bush Had a Book to Sell
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Bush’s next request was for his daughter. He pointed out that he’d taken her call and hoped she would return the favor by helping him sell The Call of Freedom: Portraits of Political Prisoners and Dissidents. The book pairs 44 full-color portraits painted by Bush with the stories of people persecuted for their political positions, religious beliefs, ethnicity or gender.
The Bush Center lists the release date as March 9th, 2027. An exhibition of the same name is scheduled to open that day at the George W. Bush Presidential Museum in Dallas. Bush Hager tried to secure an appearance on the show while she had her father on the phone, asking whether he would come to the studio to discuss the book.
“I would doubt that,” he said. Jones, meanwhile, began talking up her co-host’s book club and her ability to get readers interested in a title. Bush Hager still wanted to know how her father planned to meet Jones if he wouldn’t visit them at work.
An Invitation for Jenna and “Michelle”
Bush suggested that the two hosts come to Dallas. As he extended the invitation, he called Jones “Michelle,” prompting his daughter to correct him: “Sheinelle, not Michelle!” Jones laughed, Bush quickly corrected himself, and the hosts said they would come to Texas. Jones also assured him that Jenna would help with the book.
Jones even asked whether the book could become a book-club pick. “I don’t think so, but I love you!” Bush Hager told her father, according to Entertainment Weekly. Before signing off, Bush thanked Jones for her friendship with his daughter and wished them both well. Jones thanked him for being a good dad to Jenna and spoke about their close relationship.
Bush Hager told her father she loved him, and he said he loved her too. With the call over, she returned to the name mix-up, joking that dads were all the same. The hosts then floated making their visit to Texas a road trip.