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Three times Michelle Obama and George W. Bush proved friendship can cross party lines
Former first lady Michelle Obama and former President George W. Bush have a surprisingly warm friendship.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama and former President George W. Bush have a surprisingly warm friendship, especially for a pair who hold different worldviews in a time of deep partisan and cultural divisions.
In recent years, Obama has repeatedly praised her husband's predecessor, even calling Bush her "partner in crime." And a few public moments of affection the two have shared have gone viral.
In a Wednesday interview with Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush Hager of NBC News, Obama called the former president "a beautiful, funny, kind, sweet man," though she added, "I don't know that I agree with him on everything."
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Bush Hager said the feeling is mutual.
"I got a text from my dad this morning that said, 'Send Michelle my love,'" she told Obama.
Obama said the gesture may have struck a chord because people are "hungry" for leaders who can rise above the political fray.
"Party doesn't separate us. Color, gender — those kinds of things don't separate us. It's the messages that we send," Obama said. "If we're the adults and the leaders in the room and we're not showing that level of decency, we cannot expect our children to do the same."
The two have a friendship stretching back since Barack Obama's first inauguration.
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"She kind of likes my sense of humor,'' Bush told People magazine last year. "Anybody who likes my sense of humor, I immediately like."
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"The hug that went around the world," Jenna Bush Hager called it.
Obama embraces Bush at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington in September 2016.
Sharing candy
Bush was caught on camerapassing Obama a cough dropduring Sen. John McCain's funeral service in Washington, DC in September.
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A clip of Obama mouthing "thank you" as Bush passed her the cough drop while Sen. Joe Lieberman was giving his eulogy went viral online — and became a symbol of bipartisanship and human decency at a time of deep political and cultural division.
"He is my partner in crime at every major thing where all the 'formers' gather," Obama said of Bush inan interview on the "Today" showlast month. "So we're together all the time, and I love him to death. He's a wonderful man. He's a funny man."
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