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Erica Jean

The 2004 romantic-comedy movie First Daughter is about the life of a US president’s daughter and her struggle to lead a normal college life while managing the challenges posed by her security team.
The real-life experiences of first daughters may not always be as dramatic, but Jenna Bush, daughter of former president George W. Bush, occasionally found herself in amusing situations with the Secret Service while dating her future husband, Henry C. Hager. So who was the man behind the scenes?
Henry Hager’s father was a politician

Henry C. Hager, 46, was born in 1978 in Richmond, Virginia. His father, John H. Hager, was a tobacco company executive; his mother Margaret “Maggie” Chase held various administrative positions.
Raised alongside his brother Jack in Virginia, Henry was pursuing a business administration degree at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, when his father was elected Virginia’s lieutenant governor in 1998.
After graduating from the private university, Henry began his career as an assistant to Karl Rove, senior advisor to president George W. Bush. He later took on the role of deputy operations manager for the Bush-Dick Cheney presidential campaign of 2004.
How did Jenna Bush meet her husband, Henry Hager?

The couple met while working on Bush’s re-election. It was during this period that he met Jenna Bush, 43, now a TV host, who had just graduated from the University of Texas before beginning a career as a teacher. In the meantime she was working at her father’s re-election headquarters.
“A friend of mine from college was like, his intern at work, and we were going to watch the Texas [football] game, and they were like, ‘Can we bring Henry?’” Bush shared on Today with Hoda & Jenna in 2019.
Despite his having a girlfriend, according to People, Hager and Bush hit it off and shared a kiss that evening.
Their relationship quickly blossomed.
“On Election Day, they were friends. By the [Inauguration], they were an item,” a friend of Hager told People in 2008.
Jenna Bush tried proposing after three months

Although only 22, Bush felt completely herself for the first time in a relationship and soon realised she wanted to marry Hager, she told the Today show.
“I might’ve had a Christmas cocktail and we were dancing, and I said, ‘This is it, I know it, let’s just get married, what are we waiting for?’” she recalled. “He smiled and he was like, ‘I’m crazy about you, but you’re young.’”
The couple continued to date, but being the first daughter came with unique challenges for Bush – including a constant Secret Service detail.
One date night ended with Hager’s car running out of petrol and rolling backwards into a Secret Service car, she said. Another incident saw him trying to sneak out of the White House after falling asleep – and being caught.
Despite the occasional run-in with the president’s men, Hager advanced his career by taking a position in the US Department of Commerce, where he worked with commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez in 2005 and 2006.

After leaving his government post, Hager returned to Virginia to pursue a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, reported The Washington Post. It was during a hiking trip in Maine in 2007 that he proposed.
But before doing so, he followed tradition by asking President George Bush for his blessing.
“So, the guy comes to see me, and he says, ‘I want to marry your daughter.’ I said, ‘Done deal,’” the former president told CNN at the time.
The couple wed a year later, in 2008, at the Bush family’s lakeside ranch in Crawford, Texas, before 200 guests.
He switched to the business sector

Hager then worked at Constellation Energy in its corporate strategy and development group, before becoming a director at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, a global investment firm. After six years, he took on the role of managing director at the Calgary-based Waterous Energy Fund, which invests in Canadian oil and gas.
The couple welcomed daughter Mila in 2013, followed by another daughter, Poppy, in 2015 and son Hal in 2019. They now live in New York City.


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From a chance meeting during a presidential campaign to a White House escape attempt and crashing into a Secret Service car: how the couple navigated their sometimes comic dating years


From a chance meeting during a presidential campaign to a White House escape attempt and crashing into a Secret Service car: how the couple navigated their sometimes comic dating years.
