The Chicks' Natalie Maines says Trump makes her reconsider former foe George W. Bush: 'It would be a huge lovefest'
After living through the presidency of Donald Trump, the Chicks are rethinking how they feel about President George W. Bush.
The women who make up the group — Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer — said as much on Tuesday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, when the host asked.
“Yes,” Maines said. “I don’t rethink that I didn’t want to go to war and that weapons of mass destruction were a lie but yes, it would be a huge lovefest if I saw George Bush right now, because of where we’re at with this current president.”
Maines further explained her stance Monday when she equated Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic to “second-degree murder.”
Cohen’s question on Watch What Happens Live followed one about whether the women had seen the backlash that talk show host Ellen DeGeneres received last year after she hung out with Bush at a Dallas Cowboys football game. They had.
Maines quipped, “I joke that today I might actually make out with George Bush.”
The Chicks were infamously shunned by much of the country music community in 2003, after Maines criticized Bush in the lead up to the Iraq War. During a performance in London, she said, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”
Although the Chicks said they hadn’t come into contact with members of the Bush family since the incident, Maguire explained that she and her sister, Strayer, used to encounter Bush at Texas Rangers baseball games. They would attend to sing the national anthem, while he was a part-owner of the team.
Cohen asked the group, too, about their feelings on Taylor Swift, an artist they’ve collaborated with and who cited them in her January documentary, Miss Americana. In it, Swift said she was warned early on that she shouldn’t speak out on issues she cares about precisely because of what happened to the Chicks. Swift, who released her first album in 2006, when she was 16, has increasingly spoken out about political issues and the causes she cares about since late 2018.
“You know, she started her career when she was so young,” Strayer said, “that, I think, she had people that she went to as kind of a panel when she was younger, so it’s good to see her as she becomes her own woman questioning these things and saying, ‘No, I really do want to talk about it.’”
Strayer wasn’t surprised Swift had been told not to be like the Chicks.
“That’s not news to us, either,” Strayer said, “but, I don’t know. I’m proud of her. She’s awesome!”
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