Jenna Bush Hager shared funny memories of learning to drive as a teenager.
The Today with Hoda and Jenna co-host, 41, opened up about her driver’s education with Hoda Kotb, 59, last week, saying the Department of Public Safety taught her to drive — not former President George W. Bush or former first lady Barbara Bush.
“My parents weren’t allowed to drive then,” Bush Hager explained to Kotb on the show, recalling that her dad was the governor of Texas at the time. With a state agency conducting her lessons, she said, “you’d think I’d be an excellent driver.”
Despite getting lessons from the Department of Public Safety, “I took a driver’s course,” she continued. “Some guy threw me in the dumpster. Like, we were flirting, you know?”
After Kotb stared at her with a confused expression, Bush Hager added, “Well, that’s how guys flirted in the ’90s.”
Kotb then shared her own memories of learning to drive, saying that she also took driver’s lessons and that — although her parents let teachers deliver most of the important lessons in her teenage years — they were in the car with her when she first practiced driving at parking lot.
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Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager July 19, 2023
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty
In August, Bush Hager spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about “being the absolute best blessing from her parents during her teenage years.
“I had parents who were really supportive and never made us feel bad about the mistakes we made,” she told PEOPLE. “But yeah, it wasn’t easy. And yet I’m so grateful for everything.”
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Bush Hager and her fraternal twin sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, were 7 when their grandfather, President George HW Bush, was sworn in as president and 13 when their father became governor of Texas. While Bush Hager was attending college in Austin, her father became the 43rd President of the United States.
“It’s interesting. I had such a juxtaposition,” Bush Hager recalled. “When my dad became president, everything changed. We just wanted to be normal college kids.”
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“I think the world expected us to be perfect, even though our parents weren’t, which is the absolute best blessing they could have given us. The freedom to be who we are and make mistakes,” Bush Hager told PEOPLE. “Because I don’t know how I would be a mother if I didn’t have the grace to fail. I think kids, teenagers now are so afraid of making mistakes.”
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Bush Hager and her husband Henry Chase Hager are parents to daughters Mila and Poppy and son Hal. She said the former president, 77, was a “hands-on dad” and a caring grandfather who loved spending time with his children.
“He was home and with us every night,” she said, “He was an equal parent to my mom. And I don’t think that’s surprising if you know him. He loved being a father and he loves being a grandfather.”
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Source: HIS Education