Jenna Bush Hager Breaks Down As She Discusses Nashville School Shooting – ‘I Have A 9 Year-Old’

The world is in mourning after the devastating school shooting that took place at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee yesterday, claiming the lives of three 9 year-old children and three adults. While discussing the shooting on “Today” on Tuesday morning, Jenna Bush Hager could not help but break down in tears as a mother to a 9 year-old herself. 

Jenna Bush Hager And Hoda Kotb Talk School Shooting

Daily Mail reported that Bush Hager and her co-host Hoda Kotb reflected on the shooting, which occurred at the Covenant School. 

“This is one of those mornings that you begin with a heavy heart. You and I have jobs that we do. We are journalists. We interview people, but I think there are certain times where you’re like, you know, for a minute I just want to take my journalism cap off and be a mother,” Kotb said, with Bush Hager adding, “And be a human.”

Kotb, who is the mother of two girls aged 6 and 3, said that she thinks “a lot of people have become desensitized” to mass shootings.  

“If it’s not in your town, you go, ‘Oh what happened? Where? How many people? Oh,'” she lamented.

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Bush Hager Gets Emotional

Bush Hager then revealed that she has a friend in Nashville and “knew of one of the girls who was nine who went to school yesterday and who didn’t get to come home.” She shares three children ages 9, 7, and 3 with her husband Henry Hager.

“So when Henry came home from work, I said, ‘God, did you see this?'” she recalled.

“And I had to whisper because I have a nine-year-old who was doing her homework, and the thought that any of us could send our children on the buses or walking or drop them off at carpool and not get to hug them again is just beyond,” she continued as she began to tear up.

Not stopping there, Bush Hager brought up the book bans that are happening in schools across the country.

“As a book lover, I just have to say, and my mom has said this as a librarian, we are worried about giving our kids Judy Blume and other books that are important to the history, to the fabric of our country, and we aren’t worried about sending our kids to schools where they’re not safe?” she questioned. “I just don’t understand what has happened to a country that I know you love, that I love.”

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Bush Hager Was A Teacher ‘Not That Long Ago’

Bush Hager went on to say that a lot has changed since she was a teacher, which was “not that long ago.” 

“It was what 15 years ago max? We did not do [active-shooter] drills,” she explained. “I was not scared, and I taught in the most marginalized areas in this country. I was not scared going to school.”

The shooter has been identified as Audrey Hale, a 28 year-old transgender woman who previously attended the Covenant School as a child. The child victims have been identified as Hallie Scruggs, William Kenney, and Evelyn Dieckhaus, all nine, while the adult victims were head of school Dr. Katherine Koonce, 60, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and school custodian Mike Hill, 61.

This shooting was unbelievably tragic, and we can’t imagine what the families of the victims are going through. Please join us in saying a prayer for them during this tragic time.