When Jenna Bush Hager asked her husband to co-host TODAY with Jenna & Friends, he said the Mary Oliver poem “The Summer Day” came to mind.
“What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?” Henry Hager recalls, standing next to his wife of nearly 17 years backstage at TODAY.
Essentially, it was a yes โ even if it felt like a “wild” one.
โI said, Letโs do this,โ he continues.
But Jenna, standing next to him minutes before he made his debut, fact-checks Hager slightly.
“Except for I did ask you last year, and you did say no,” she says.
The couple clarify that while the timing didn’t work out last year, this year, it did.
Hager joined Jenna at the tail end of Family Week on TODAY with Jenna & Friends, which started with an appearance from her twin sister, Barbara Bush, and her cousins Wendy Stapleton and Sam LeBlond.
For Hager, who works in finance, live TV is a leap โ one that he’s excited to make.
“I’m excited to do this. I’m really excited to support my wife. That is what really drove me to do this. It’s not really my cup of tea. She’s excellent at it. I do something really different for work,” he says.
During his March 27 debut, Hager surprised Jenna with a segment about how he prepared for the show that left her in tears. Together, the couple went on to interview “The White Lotus” star Leslie Bibb and fielded a sweet call from their three kids, daughters Mila, 11, and Poppy, 9, and son Hal, 5.
Jenna, in a previous interview with TODAY.com, cited her marriage as one of the reasons she felt ready to take on TODAY with Jenna & Friends, which launched after former co-host Hoda Kotb left TODAY. She reiterated that point before Hager’s big day.
“He’s been supporting me for 20 years, so I probably wouldn’t even have this job if it wasn’t for him,” Jenna says.
Jenna says Hager encouraged their move from Baltimore, where they were living when she started as a TODAY correspondent, to New York.
“I was trying to be supportive. It worked out really well for my (career) as well,” Hager says. “Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.”
As for whether Jenna would ever want to do a day in Hager’s job? The answer, there, is quick: “No, I wouldn’t.”
“I’m not even asking,” Hager responds.
“I would go to dinner with you,” she adds.
