experience as somebody who fought in world war ii and he realized how precious life was and he wanted to do everything that he could to make sure there wasn t unnecessary loss of life in that conflict. and that s who he was personally as well as professionally. thats who he was. personally as well as profess n profession professionally. that s who george h.w. bush was, a very, very kind man, somebody who cared deeply about people. and remember, when he was elected to congress back in the late 1960s, he supported from that houston district he supported fair housing. and that was a controversial move at the time but he supported fair housing because he knew it was the right thing to do. his father of course had been one of the republicans that worked with president johnson in 1964 to pass the civil rights bill and in 65, the voting rights bill and when he worked
fall of the berlin wall, the reunification of germany, major global events that played out under the watch of george h.w. bush, a one-term president whose legacy in the last 25 years in the generation since his presidency has in many ways been enhanced in a way that few one-term presidents before him we have seen. hallie jackson, who s covering the current president donald trump on his township to the g20 summit in buenos aires, she joins us live from there. reporter: we have. in a statement from president trump and first lady melania trump responding to the death now of former president george h.w. bush. i m going to read you pieces of this. president trump saying that melania and i join with the grieving nation to mourn the loss of former president george h.w. bush who passed away last night. through his essential disarming wit and faith in country he inspired generations of fellow americans to public service,
part of the reason his son and certainly cheney and rumsfeld wanted to go to war is they felt that they had to finish the job, so to speak. and they completely misrepresented, in fact, what was going on in iraq. there were no weapons of mass destruction. and we went into a war that is still simmering in its own way. it seems there s an irony there, obviously, to put it mildly, that so many of the now positive assessments of george h.w. bush s presidency are rooted in the perceived failures of his sons when it came to iraq. that s true. it was so often in any presidency it is very hard to project about what the enduring advantage of a decision will be or the disadvantage of it will be. and he got caught in the
they were married in january of 1945, fully thinking that lieutenant junior grade george h.w. bush, as he was at that point, would go back to be part of the invasion and attack on the home islands of japan. vj day was an incredibly joyous moment for them as millions of other americans. they were married for 73 years. it was one of the great marriages. had its ups and downs, as every marriage does. we talked about the loss of robin in 1953. as you know, families that lose a child, sometimes it brings you closer and sometimes it creates rifts that are difficult to heal. with the bushes, they were strong for each other.
we re going to pause here just for a few seconds because we re going to be joined by our network affiliates, pick up the network coverage as we continue our coverage. this is an nbc news special report. steve kornacki here in new york with the breaking news. this overnight, former president george herbert walker bush has passed away at the age of 94. that word coming to us just over an hour ago, a statement released by his son, the 43rd president george w. bush. he had governed this country from 1989-1993, a time of momentous change not just in this country, but in this world. a president who oversaw the prosecution of the gulf war, the fall of soviet communism, the