George W. Bush Joins Daughter Jenna Bush Hager To Discuss Immigration

But no further ado, let's bring on your dad. Hi, baby. This is pretty cool. Pretty cool. I told them there are new citizens who are sitting here that I want to make sure they knew that this is my daughter Jenna, but I forgot to tell him that when she was a teenager. Teenager what? Slight pain. I had to stop it. Did you ever imagine? I mean, I gotta say, I'm super proud of your girl. I can't believe what she's done on the show. And did you ever imagine that this would be where she would be at this moment in her life? You know, Hoda, there's a lot of things I never imagined. I never imagined she would be a star and we're very proud of her and love her. I never imagined I'd be president. So there's that. Neither did mom. You know, it's so much fun to have you here, dad, because this is something that I've seen you work on. Yeah, I've seen you talk about it when you were the governor of Texas, although we probably didn't talk about it that much. It's so funny because Hoda, people think because I was born to a politician that he didn't want me to have my own views. Right. And really, and probably why he says we were a pain is that we sat around our kitchen table talking about things. And I think now that we're both parents, we see how brave it is to raise kids to be curious and independent and you did that for Barbara. Well, thank you. You can look at it as brave or you look at it as total surrender. But we're very, yeah, mom and I are very proud of your independent view. You take time to understand issues and you're not afraid to speak your mind. Does Jenna call up these days and inform you of her opinions on certain things? No, thank you. No, she doesn't do that. No, she got her hands full. Yeah, she's been a great mother. Yeah, and she tells me you are as well and she got her priority straight and raising those little kids is a top priority to her and they're beautiful children. Well, they are and you're a heck of a grandpa. We want to talk about that. This book though is so moving and I can't help but think like when this book was coming out. It was so welcome because I feel like everything is red hot when it comes to immigration. Yeah rhetoric repulses me when I hear it. Yeah, I can't take it and I was just thinking like how is the temperature going to get turned down? How are we going to realize that these are the stories we should be looking at? Well, first of all, you know, not everybody is nativist. Yeah, and a lot of Republicans don't agree with the rhetoric yeah on immigration. There's a handful of people. I don't have many but there's a group of people who are loud, but there's a lot of quiet people out there who understand what I know and that is we're all God's children and every life is precious and people need to be treated with respect and that's why I put the book out there. You know, the elections have consequences and I really think a lot of the last election. I suspect the next election will be a lot of people saying I'm tired of the bitterness and the ugliness. I expect better from our elected officials and this is a way to call people to account and say look fix the system. You know, yeah, you know in the headlines are filled with Asian Americans who are scared. Yeah, they're home irritates me. I mean so tear Suzuki and there's a special special person but they're all special but she said, you know, finally I'm seeing she saw her portrait and said finally I'm seeing finally I'm seeing beautiful statement and then she said, you know, I'm not letting my parents. She's from Cambodia and I'd let my parents go out because I'm worried about anti-asian bigotry and it really surprised me in Dallas, Texas and and then it irritated the hell out of me and all of us as Americans have to work hard to be respectful of people and understand that we're all American and each of us have got a culture and tradition that that we honor, you know, I was watching you with former president Obama and former president Clinton and y'all talked about vaccines and I thought this is a this is a really Powerful group very viable former presidents together, you know kind of blowing the horn for vaccines and then I got to thinking I wonder if that group would get together on immigration on an issue like that. Is that anything you've ever discussed with them or would you be interested? Yeah, kind of about my they're not painters. Yeah, maybe they could be what you've proven is that anybody can do anything. I put my I proven that you can teach an old dog new tricks listen. I know you're not at all interested in polling even though Barbara and I sometimes would go and be like dad. You see this poll and there was a CBS poll CBS. Not this network. Not our pool. Yeah, not the family. Not the part of the NBC family that came out when you were leaving office and I don't want to tell you what the number is, but you may it wasn't good now. 21% but now it's 61 and hoda and I don't have a question but don't care about that. Why do you like me now? How do you like me now? That was Will Ferrell's comment. History's been super kind. You know, here's the thing. If you've been president for eight years the American people get to the point. They say surely we can do better in this fool. And then all of a sudden life gets in perspective. Yeah, and you know when I left office we're in the middle of a serious economic downturn. You know, if I wasn't I wasn't so subjective about it. I wouldn't have liked me either. Okay. What about we like you? Yeah, Matthew McConaughey. There's making headlines down in Texas dad. I read that Matthew. Yeah, governor and he's actually ahead of Governor Abbott the polls in this moment. Yeah. So what do you think? I didn't believe the 21% either. What do you think his chances are or are you interested? I have no idea. I just tell you this is tough business. Yeah, it is tough. It is a tough business and that's okay. I mean, but the question is are we able to set aside our partisan difference? Yeah and solve problems. Yeah. I mean politics has always been tough, but it's I mean Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, he was they really treated him badly. One of the greatest president and are you are you hopeful? I mean when you look like you said the loudest voices suck up all the oxygen and sometimes take up all the room, but are you hopeful? Yeah, but they only got one voice but one vote, you know, a loud voice has got one vote the quiet voices have got a vote to and there's a lot more quiet voices than there are loud voices. And so I'm very hopeful. I think democracy is self-healing and I can't you know, I can't give you who the candidates are going to be or this that and the other but I'm very hopeful of our country because on one of the worst days in our nation's history January 6 the institutions held. They held they held firm and you know, in spite of how horrific that was. Yeah, it was beautiful thing to know that the legislature met that the courts are meeting and that ought to give people confidence and hope. And what about sitting here? This is our first time to be out on this Plaza. That's usually filled with people. It's it's like a cast member of our show to see these Americans getting sworn in today must give you hope. It's awesome. Isn't it? I mean it really are these people went through a lot of spent a lot of time some hardship a lot of difficulty is an expensive complicated process. They played by the rules and they're now citizens and they have no they have no different standing from me. We're both equal and we're all equal and that's the beauty of America. Nobody's better than anybody else when it comes to this. Yeah, I got calls from friends and they were talking to their parents and they were remembering their day. They're swearing in day watching this moment and it brought back that whole rush of emotions. Like I remember my day like it was yeah. And what about your what about your parents? I mean, I feel so lucky that my parents took that chance and came here. My dad was saying like you could have a doctorate degree in Egypt and sit at a desk with no phone, but here anything's possible since since your kids. He was like you can do it. I go. I want to be a basketball star. Of course, you can just the fact that it was possible.