Jenna Bush Hager Has Big New Gig, and Dad Is 'Proud'

She will host the fourth hour of 'Today' with Hoda Kotb
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 26, 2019 11:57 AM CST
Jenna Bush Hager Has Big New Gig, and Dad Is 'Proud'
A file photo of Jenna Bush Hager.   (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

Jenna Bush Hager will be the new Kathie Lee. The Today show said Tuesday that Hager will permanently co-host the show's fourth hour with Hoda Kotb. She will replace Kathie Lee Gifford, who is leaving in April. "It feels humbling and I can’t believe it," Hager said. She also shared a message from her father, George W. Bush: "My dad just wrote me three words, which made me weep. He said, ‘Very proud dad.'" Then she added, "Which I'm like, what is there to be proud about? I'm just drinking wine in the morning!"

The latter is a reference to the fourth hour of show, from 10 to 11, being the "loosest" of the NBC broadcast, per Variety. Kotb and Gifford do indeed drink vino while chatting, and they've become "cult favorites" as a result, the piece adds. "You're going to sit next to the best person in the whole world because she has your back, because she has your heart," Gifford told Hager Tuesday. "It's going to be fun. You guys are going to have a ball." (More Jenna Bush stories.)

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