Jenna Bush Hager revealed her 11-year-old daughter Mila was left slightly rattled by the presence of Secret Service officers during a recent visit by her mom, Laura Bush.
“If you zoom in on Mila’s face, she was quite overwhelmed by the Secret Service. Look at her face,” Jenna, 43, noted to guest cohost Savannah Guthrie while showing a family photo on the Monday, March 3, episode of Today With Jenna & Friends.
“You can tell there’s some overwhelm. I mean, she was thrilled her grandmother was here and we had so much fun. Poppy made a ‘Welcome Grammy’ poster. Everybody ran down,” the host said of her other daughter Poppy, 9, and son Hal, 4.
Mila was seen posing next to former First Lady Laura, 78, while looking nervously at her grandmother while Secret Service officers were off camera.
Savannah, 53, pointed out how the presidential security detail had been a steady presence in Jenna’s life.
“Your kids are used to the Secret Service. I mean, that’s all they’ve ever known,” the Australia native pointed out. “But do you feel like as they’re getting older they’re like, ‘Oh, who are these people?’”
Jenna replied about Laura’s visit to New York City, “Yesterday there was some and Mila was like, ‘Are you humiliated?’ And I’m like, ‘No Mila, I’m used to this.”
Savannah recalled how Jenna had a Secret Service detail all through college since her father, George W. Bush, was the sitting president. He served two terms between January 2001 and January 2008.
Jenna joked about how not even her 2007 proposal from husband Henry Hager was allowed to be a private moment. She said with a laugh, “Daddy and I got engaged with the Secret Serviceman 100 feet away.”
The Texas native said, “No, I haven’t told her all those stories and maybe I should,” referring to her eldest child. Savannah gushed, “You should definitely tell her. I think she’s going to love them.”
Jenna joked how Mila and Poppy used the Secret Service officers present with Laura during her visit to scare their younger brother.
“And Hal, you know, they like to threaten Hal with fake policemen all the time and so Mila was like, ‘Hal, you know these are Secret Service. They can arrest you.’ And Hal was like, ‘But I didn’t do nothing … I’m innocent,’” she described.
Savannah then made a sweet revelation, adding, “He’s my little godson, he’s innocent.”
The Today cohost later prodded Jenna about if she was going to expand her family.
“I had a dream last week that you were having baby No. 4,” Savannah told Jenna. “Do you have anything to announce?”
“I have nothing to announce,” Jenna said after a long deep pause. “I’m pretty sure I’ve come to terms that three, even though it’s an imperfect number, it’s the perfect number for our household.”
The former schoolteacher revealed in 2023 that she would “like” to add one more child to her family but “Henry put his foot down,” about her husband, 46.
“He says we have three healthy babies,” Jenna told viewers at the time. “I’m 41 … I had a little health stuff [while pregnant] with Hal.”
