‘Today’: Sheinelle Jones Reveals Her & Jenna Bush Hager’s Surprising Family Connection

Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones were connected long before they became Today colleagues and cohosts.

Bush Hager kicked off the Wednesday, March 4, episode of Today With Jenna & Sheinelle by highlighting Jones’ new feature in Philadelphia Magazine. After discussing how Jones opened up about her early news days and the origin of her name in the interview, Bush Hager shared, “The other thing that you talk about in this article, which I knew but many people don’t — our fathers are connected, kind of.”

Calling the connection “so crazy,” Jones explained, “Her father [former president George W. Bush] nominated my father [C. Darnell Jones II] to the federal bench. So, my father’s a federal judge. He is — can you say retired when you’re a federal judge? I don’t know. … He ended up going through in the Obama years, but it was her father that put it in motion.”

Bush Hager said Jones once made the revelation “over many a margarita,” adding, “Who could ever predict [that]? I think the world is a weird and wonderful place,” she stated.

Bush Hager’s father served as the President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. Jones’ father, meanwhile, was sworn in as a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 2008 after being nominated by Bush.

 

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Jones’s dad celebrated his retirement the same week as his birthday in November 2022. “Please join me in wishing Happy Birthday to my father Judge C Darnell Jones. 🎂 It’s been quite a week, retiring after 35 years as a judge; 14 years of those years as a federal judge,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “This morning … a new chapter begins for sure. Can I quote Oprah now? ‘God has bigger dreams for you than you can dream for yourself.’”

In her interview with Philadelphia Magazine, Jones recalled how she didn’t let her father’s status as a federal judge interfere with her own career prospects. “When I got the job on Good Day [Philadelphia], they didn’t know that my father was a judge,” she recalled of her former hosting job. “And I remember telling them, and they asked me why I hadn’t mentioned that in the interview. I just wanted the job on my own.”

Jones left Good Day Philadelphia to become an anchor on Weekend Today in 2014. She joined the show’s third hour in 2019 and cohosted the show with Al Roker, Dylan Dreyer, and Craig Melvin until she permanently joined Bush Hager at the fourth hour desk in January. While Jenna & Sheinelle is Jones’ main focus, she continues to fill in for absent anchors during Today‘s earlier hours.

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“News is embedded in me. It’s part of my DNA. If something happens in Venezuela, I’m talking about it,” she told the outlet. “Then as we get closer to 9 o’clock, you start seeing celebrity guests; we might be talking about new movies or whatever the hot show is. And then from 9 to 10, it’s like if news and a talk show had a baby. And for Jenna & Sheinelle in the fourth hour, it’s ‘Let’s sit down and talk a little bit and make you feel good.’”

Jones continued, “We already know what’s happening in our world. We know what’s happening in our country. Our goal is to uplift you and have a good time. That’s what the last hour is all about. All morning long, I get to use both sides of the brain, the whole skill set that I’ve gained over the years. This is my dream. It’s amazing.”

Today With Jenna & Sheinelle, Weekdays, 10a/9c, NBC