Speaking with PEOPLE in this week's issue, Hager admits to dealing with some feeling of inadequacy when she compares her career path to her twin and best friend
The Bush twins, Barbara Pierce Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, have always been close even as their lives have taken them in ever more different directions.
Bush, older by one minute and the more reserved sister, is the board chair of the Global Health Corps, a nonprofit focused on health care access which she co-founded in 2008.
Meanwhile the outgoing Hager is soon to be a co-host of the Today show’s famously frothy fourth hour after several years as a correspondent (and before that a teacher in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore).
Speaking with PEOPLE in this week’s issue, Hager admits to dealing with some feeling of inadequacy when she compares her career path to her twin and best friend, both 37.
“I always kind of belittle myself next to my sister, just because she’s saving the world and I’m drinking pinot grigio,” Hager says.
But then, she says, Bush reminds her that the work of TV newscasting is not as meaningless as she may sometimes feel.
“Don’t be down on yourself. You bring joy to people,” Hager says Bush told her.
It’s a spirit she hopes to preserve when she joins Today as a co-host in April following the departure of Kathie Lee Gifford.
• For more on Hager’s new role with the Today show and updates on her family, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
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“They have done that impeccably for 11 years,” Hager says of the 10 o’clock slot. “They have made people laugh, they have comforted people in moments of sadness. And I think that joy is so going to be there.”
Hager’s bond with her sister is the stuff of numerous anecdotes and interviews. In an at-home interview with PEOPLE in 2010, they talked about Bush coming to visit Hager in New York City when she traveled there from Baltimore for work.
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“The other reason I stay with her is I don’t have a TV,” Bush explained.
Hager added: “We’re in the room, and I’ll be, ‘Can’t we read?’ And she’s like, ‘Nope. Is there a Law & Order on?’ ”
Speaking with PEOPLE, Hager’s husband, Henry, joked: “It’s funny, sometimes I do feel like I’m married to two women.”