Jenna Bush Hager was back on Today With Jenna & Sheinelle on Monday, August 10, after missing the show’s 7 a.m. ET and 8 a.m. ET hours because she had come straight off a flight from Maine. Sheinelle Jones said people had been asking about Bush Hager all morning before she arrived for the fourth hour in Studio 1A.
The return gave viewers the answer to a question that had already followed the show through the morning: where was Bush Hager? The co-host, who now shares the fourth hour with Jones, said she had been in Maine with her family for her little nephew’s baptism and was heading to work immediately after the trip. She described the day as a family gathering that left her emotional, especially because she was reading a Mary Oliver poem during the service.
Bush Hager said the baptism took place in the church where she has gone with her grandparents her whole life, and she added that her own children were baptized there too. She said she was “kind of weepy” seeing her twin sister hold the baby and that it was “so fun to have all the cousins together.”
That explanation also fit the broader rhythm of the morning. Bush Hager usually appears earlier in the day through Jenna’s Morning Boost, Pop Start and the 8 a.m. ET hour before settling into the fourth hour at 10 a.m. ET. When she missed those earlier segments, the gap was noticeable even on a show that had already been adjusting its lineup. Both Bush Hager and Jones had been absent the previous Friday, when Willie Geist filled in for Jones.
Bush Hager has anchored the fourth hour in one form or another since taking over Kathie Lee Gifford’s role in 2019. She worked with Hoda Kotb for years before Kotb exited Today in January 2025, and Jones became her permanent co-host in January. Monday’s return did not signal another change in that pairing. It simply meant Bush Hager made it back in time for the part of the show that bears both of their names, after a morning that began in Maine and ended at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
The immediate question is no longer whether she would make it. She did. What mattered on Monday was the timing, and Bush Hager cleared that by the fourth hour, with no sign that the schedule shuffle would extend beyond the day.
