Natalie Maines Would 'Make Out' With George W. Bush Over Trump

Natalie Maines touched off one of the biggest controversies in country music history when she famously criticized then-President George W. Bush during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the Chicks singer says she'd "make out" with the former president now, compared to currently sitting President Donald Trump.

The Chicks appeared on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live on Tuesday night (July 21) to promote their new album, Gaslighter, and at one point during the interview, host Andy Cohen asked their opinion of the backlash Ellen DeGeneres faced after she was pictured seated next to Bush at a football game in 2019.

"You know, I joke that today I might actually make out with George Bush," Maines replied with a laugh.

The trio, then known as the Dixie Chicks, suffered an enormous career backlash after comments Maines made on stage in London on March 10, 2003. "Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all,” the singer told the audience. “We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

The fallout from those remarks changed the trio's career forever, but Maines tells Cohen that given her current view of Trump's presidency, she's revised certain aspects of her opinion about Bush.

"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," she states.

The Chicks recently dropped the word "Dixie" from their name in response to the widespread social unrest that's swept America after the deaths of George Floyd and other unarmed Black men and women at the hands of police across the country.

Released on July 17, Gaslighter is the Chicks' first new studio album since Taking the Long Way in 2006. The Chicks had planned to tour arenas in 2020, before the novel coronavirus pandemic put the brakes on major tours across the board.

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