Matt Mackowiak's Mack On Politics

The life and legacy of former First Lady Barbara Bush is the subject of episode 128. Our returning guest is Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today and author of the new bestseller, ‘The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty”. In this conversation, we explore Page’s writing process and how she secured the subject’s unprecedented participation. We then explore how the loss of Robin Bush at age 3 shaped the rest of their lives, how Barbara went through some mental health issues in the 1970s, how Bush 41’s political career began, how the Reagan-Bush alliance formed, how dysfunctional the Nancy Reagan-Barbara Bush relationship was , how they dealt with rumors of infidelity, how the political careers of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush developed, how Barbara Bush viewed Donald Trump and the modern Republican Party, and whether she was content with the family and legacy she built at the end of her life.