Bush Hager took to Instagram on Friday, sharing a slideshow of herself posed in front of the Austin Tex-Mex establishment’s marquee, which read, “It’s National Tequila Day. Party like you’re the president’s daughter.”
The tongue-in-cheek phrase is a nod to Bush Hager’s arrest 25 years ago for attempting to order a margarita using another woman’s identification card.
But Bush Hager was doubling down on not one but two jokes after mistaking where the night-turned-national-news event occurred last week.
The “Today” co-host did her own version of a viral social media trend in which people pretend to be interviewed for a dramatic documentary, writing that she was preparing for a hypothetical Netflix film about “that one time at El Arroyo when I was 19.”
The comedic reference got one detail wrong: The incident happened at the original Chuy’s on Barton Springs Road in May 2001, not El Arroyo.
This was not the first time El Arroyo embraced Bush Hager’s arrest. During a 2024 visit to Austin with former “Today” co-host Hoda Kotb, the restaurant displayed a message on its marquee referencing the incident.
Bush Hager, who was then a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Texas, tried to order a margarita using another woman’s ID. Her twin sister, Barbara Bush, was also cited for underage alcohol possession after restaurant employees called Austin police.
The Chuy’s incident came about five weeks after Bush Hager was cited during an underage drinking enforcement operation at a Sixth Street bar, where undercover officers found her drinking beer.
The back-to-back cases drew national attention as the media closely trailed the then-president’s twin daughters during the first several months of the George W. Bush administration.
Bush Hager pleaded no contest in both cases, and a judge ordered her to complete community service, attend alcohol education classes and a victim-impact panel. She also had to pay court costs and temporarily surrender her driver’s license.