Former President George W. Bush at the Ronald Reagan Library. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

President George W. Bush on Thursday said he didn't recall saying President Donald Trump's inauguration was "some weird s---."

"If I said it, I don't remember it," Bush told NPR. "But I'm glad I went to the inauguration."

When asked whether the sentiment characterized his experience at the inauguration, Bush said he was in greater awe of the peaceful transfer of power after a contentious election.

"What should characterize my reaction is it was a beautiful experience," Bush said.

Bush's comments weren't the only news about the 43rd president to go viral after Trump's inauguration. Images of the former president fumbling with a rain tarp at the inauguration became a Twitter sensation.

"I wish that I'd gotten a rain poncho," Bush told NPR.

Yashar Ali, a freelance reporter and former Democratic Party staffer, first reported Bush's comments in New York magazine. Ali said Bush's characterization of the inauguration was overheard by three people on the dais.

The Bush family's antipathy for Trump has hardly been kept secret — neither Bush, his wife, Laura, nor his father, former President George H.W. Bush, voted for Trump.

Bush has not shied away from knocking Trump's policies, though he has avoided explicitly criticizing the president.

In a February interview, Bush pushed back against the new president's opinions on the media, and he seemed to acknowledge critics' assertion that Trump's travel ban discriminated based primarily on religion. And on Thursday, the former president advocated increasing foreign aid and carrying out immigration reform, two areas where Bush has clashed with the more isolationist Trump.