‘Today’ Host Jenna Bush Hager Gives New Update on Hoda Kotb’s Replacement

Jenna Bush Hager is still looking for the right fit when it comes to filling Hoda Kotb’s spot on the TODAY show.

Bush Hager, 43, revealed to PEOPLE this weekend that there has been no one chosen to replace Kotb, 60, after she stepped back from the NBC morning show in January to spend more time with her family.

“We’re still searching,” Bush Hager told the outlet. “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 served as co-hosts for TODAY with Hoda & Jenna from April 2019 until January of this year. After Kotb exited the show, the fourth hour of the NBC show was rebranded as TODAY with Jenna & Friends, with Kotb’s spot filled with a rotating panel of guest co-hosts and Bush Hager.

Kotb and Bush Hager did reunite on camera last week when the Joy 101 founder returned to her former show to announce the launch of her wellness brand on May 28. “It was so nice,” Bush Hager told PEOPLE of seeing Kotb once again.

“Even if time goes by, there’s a connection that is undeniable, and I felt that way being with her,” she explained. “I just felt like my nervous system kind of relaxed and it was so nice to be with her. “There could have been no better reunion. It felt really great.”