today jenna bush hager in tears

Jenna Bush Hager in tears as she remembers 9/11 and impact on dad George W. Bush

The former First Daughter is incredibly close to her family

US Managing Editor
September 12, 2021

Jenna Bush Hager remembered the devastating 9/11 terror attack in a poignant segment on Today on Saturday.

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The former First Daughter was reunited with former Chief of Staff Andy Card, who worked for President George W. Bush and his family while he was in office, and tearfully remembered where she was on the day of the attacks, and how it impacted her dad – the president at the time.

Recalling how her dad was never the same again after the attacks, she told her co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie: "I knew he didn't want to be a war time President, I knew that about him. I know that as sure as I know anything. That changed all of us and it changed him.

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"There was one time in college when we were all having dinner as a family and Barbara and I were ribbing him as we like to do. Usually he likes it too.

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"But this day he didn't and he got up and left the table and it almost looked like he had tears in his eyes and my mom said: 'You need to apologise to dad, he just found out a helicopter was shut down and these men died – one of them is your age.'

Jenna Bush Hager opened up about the impact of 9/11 of her father

"There were moments like that where he was changed forever and I know that it's hard to even think about."

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Jenna – who was 19 at the time of the attack and a college student at the University of Texas - also tearfully remembered the moment she knew something had happened after spotting a number of men from the Secret Service in her backyard.

The Secret Service usually stayed hidden and out of the way, and as she saw them she "knew on that day that something had changed forever."

Jenna is incredibly close to her father George W. Bush

The presenter's twin Barbara was at Yale, and Jenna told a heartbreaking story from her sister's day. She explained that the Secret Service headquarters were in one of the towers and they were all in the basement together trying to contact their family and friends.

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"And [my twin] Barbara said that at that moment they became her brothers," Jenna said tearfully.

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"That the shared humanity – we all felt like that – so many people remember that. It was a day that reunited us in the darkest time."

While Jenna was confident that her parents would be safe thanks to the "extraordinary" Secret Service team, she said that she was devastated for everybody else.

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