The first lady Melania Trump welcomed the unveiling of an American postal service stamp honoring the former First Lady Barbara Bush in the White House Thursday – with a notable absence from former president George W. Bush.
A certain number of families and friends of the Bush family, including Neil Bush and Dorothy Bush Koch, filled the room is the event in honor of the former First Lady, who died in 2018 at the age of 92.
Dorothy Bush Koch, the youngest child of the 41st president and First Lady, spoke of the impact of his mother in the transformation of the White House into a “real house”.
Melania Trump, who made few appearances in Washington during the first three months of her husband, celebrated the political and family life of Barbara Bush.
“Ms. Bush’s inheritance is marked by her respect for tradition while breaking with the Convention,” said Melania Trump.
The first lady Melania Trump and Dorothy Bush Koch unveil a stamp of American postal service honoring the former first lady Barbara Bush, on May 8, 2025, in the east house in the White House in Washington, DC
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
Other children from Bush, George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, did not attend the event.
George W. Bush, who has kept a relatively low profile since his departure, was in Washington for the inauguration of President Donald Trump earlier this year. He was sitting near the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former president Bill Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
But he kept Trump, a republican colleague, in length and both have a story of mutual criticism.
ABC News contacted George W. Bush’s office to comment on Thursday’s event.
George W. Bush did not approve Trump in any of his presidential campaigns. In 2020, he said that he had not voted for Trump or Joe Biden, but rather wrote to Condoleezza Rice, who was his Secretary of State between 2005 and 2009.
He and his father, the late President George HW Bush criticized Trump in a 2017 book, in which they expressed concern about his impact on the republican party and conservative values. In a rare public speech the same year, George W. Bush condemned the policy mark adopted by Trump and his supporters, but did not explicitly mention Trump by name.
Former President Bill Clinton, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former president George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush and former President Barack Obama attend the inauguration of Donald Trump in the Capitol rotunda on January 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb / Pool / Getty Images
Barbara Bush said one day about Trump: “I don’t understand why people are for him.”
Trump’s criticism of the Bush family accelerated during the 2016 republican presidential primary when he followed Jeb Bush as “low energy”. He later boasted of beating the “Bush dynasty” after his electoral victory.
Trump has also repeatedly criticized George W. Bush’s response to terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq.
“Bush has led a failed and uninteresting presidency. He should not give conferences to anyone!” Trump said in 2021 after George W. Bush delivered a 20th anniversary speech in which he warned domestic terrorism represented so many foreign terrorists.
