Jenna Bush Hager Shares Update on Finding Hoda Kotb’s Today Replacement

(People) – Jenna Bush Hager is in no rush to find Hoda Kotb‘s replacement on the Today show.

Bush Hager, 43, shared an update on the hunt to find someone to fill the shoes Kotb, 60, left empty when she exited the NBC morning show in January, when speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at the Read With Jenna Book Festival in Nashville this past weekend.

“We’re still searching,” Bush Hager said. “We definitely want somebody permanent at some point just because that’s our show, and I think the Today show is such a family.”

“So to have somebody sit in that seat means a lot to all of us. So it will happen,” she continued. “I think we’ve all just been kind of living day by day and we don’t have any developments yet, but we will.”

Bush Hager and Kotb co-hosted the fourth hour of the Today show, titled Today with Hoda & Jenna, together for more than five years, starting in April 2019 until Kotb left in January 2025.

Following Kotb’s departure, the show was then retooled as Today with Jenna & Friends, with guest co-hosts joining Bush Hager.