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“I get a little antsy, as I’m sure you know, and I was sitting next to Michelle. That’s who I sit next to at funerals,” Bush said.
“And I was kind of teasing her and stuff, and I slipped her an Altoid. Not as a joke, but I thought she might want one.”
Bush then recalled his daughter informing him afterward that he was suddenly going viral online.
“And I got in the car afterwards, and you said, ‘You’re trending,’” he added. “I didn’t know what trending meant.”
The former president suggested that Americans were eager to witness political opponents sharing a human moment rather than constant hostility.
“It turns out, the country is starved to see a white, center-right Republican and an African American center-left Democrat having fun and being able to converse, not as political figures but as citizens,” Bush said.
“And I intend to continue to try to do that.”
Many in the mainstream press praised the moment at the time as refreshing and wholesome. Yet some conservatives point out that while symbolic gestures are pleasant, they do not erase years of fierce partisan attacks directed at Bush and his administration.
Bush previously said he was surprised by the national reaction to the exchange. In a 2021 interview, he remarked:
“The American people were so surprised that Michelle Obama and I could be friends.”
Michelle Obama has also spoken warmly about Bush over the years, telling Jenna Bush Hager in 2019 that friendship can exist despite political disagreement.
“We disagree on policy, but we don’t disagree on humanity, we don’t disagree about love and compassion,” she said.
“I think that’s true for all of us — it’s just that we get lost in our fear of what’s different.”
She later described Bush as someone she enjoyed seeing during official gatherings.
“He is my partner in crime at every major thing where all the formers gather. So we’re together all the time, and I love him to death.”
The candy exchange reportedly became something of a tradition. At the funeral of George H.W. Bush later in 2018, Bush once again handed Michelle Obama a sweet from his pocket.
She later joked about the mysterious gift.
“That’s the funny thing, because they were in the little White House box, and I was like, ‘How long have you had these?’ And he said, ‘A long time, we got a lot of these!’”
Moments like that, she said, are “what people are hungry for.”
Still, conservatives note that Barack Obama’s tone on the campaign trail in 2008 was anything but friendly. During his run for the presidency, Obama repeatedly blamed Bush for economic instability, foreign policy failures, and national frustration.
One of Obama’s most memorable lines from that era was:
“America, we are better than these last eight years.”
That message helped propel Obama into office, where he spent years criticizing the Bush legacy while implementing a dramatically different political agenda.
Now, years later, the media celebrates moments of friendship between the Bushes and Obamas as proof that civility can return to politics.
But many Americans — especially those who lived through the bitter attacks of past campaigns — understand that behind every viral candy moment lies a much more complicated political history.
