Former first daughter and current NBC TODAY show host Jenna Bush Hager recently sat down for an interview on the Las Culturistas podcast with hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. The episode was titled "More Like Read BY Jenna," a take on the Read With Jenna book club that Bush Hager created.
A popular interviewer in her own right, Bush Hager is the daughter of former Republican President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush and granddaughter of former GOP President George H. W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush.
In the podcast's "I Don't Think So, Honey" segment where guests are invited to rant about whatever topic puts a bee in their bonnet, Bush Hager—whose mother was a librarian—went off on a conservative staple: book bans.
Bush Hager began her rant saying:
"I don’t think so, honey. Why are we banning all these books, y’all? Why are we banning the ‘Wicked’ book? Why are we banning ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’?"
"I posted a picture of my daughter reading ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’, and you know what people said to me? They shamed me. I don’t think so, honey."
"Don't we know kids can find all, everything, on YouTube.com? We can give our kids iPads. We can give our kids phones. But you're taking 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison out of our libraries?"
In a nod to her mother's profession, Bush Hager added:
"Leave it up to the librarians. I want my kid to read. Want to know why? Books start conversations. Know what we’re not having enough of in this country? Conversations!"
You can see her "I Don't Think So, Honey" here:
On the day her Las Culturistas podcast episode dropped, Bush Hager discussed her call out of book bans on the TODAY show, saying:
"[The rant came from] somewhere really deep and guttural, and it came out like a word vomit."
Reflecting on the backlash she received in 2024 after posting a photo of her then 10-year-old daughter and a friend reading the young adult novel The Summer I Turned Pretty on the beach, Bush Hager said:
"People were like, ‘How could you let her read this?' First of all, I’m laying next to her when she reads it. I’m her mother. If she has questions, she’s going to come to me and ask it, and also y’all, your kids are getting on YouTube and have access to everything."
The mother of three continued:
"It’s such an interesting world we live in where there’s very little regulation on the internet and everything is accessible, and we are regulating libraries.... I understand the mom that would say, 'Well, this isn’t appropriate for my child.'"
"But that’s why we train librarians to know what is age appropriate, what is on-level for reading, and obviously I come from a mother who was a librarian, but what this does is to tell these central figures in our communities that they are not knowledgeable enough."
You can see her TODAY show follow-up here:
People agreed with leaving libraries to the librarians and decisions to individual parents, instead of right-wing dilettantes with big opinions and little knowledge making decisions for everyone.
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Jenna Bush Hager reportedly launched her Read With Jenna book club in March 2019 in response to a dare from a TODAY show executive producer.
The producer questioned whether people still enjoyed reading, citing articles that took opposing stances—some claimed people were reading more and others said younger generations were reading less—prompting Hager to create an online book club.
The majority of the book club’s selections are written by debut authors or marginalized voices.
You can see Bush Hager's full Los Culturistas sitdown here:
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