Norah O'Donnell Returns to CBS Mornings as Co-Host in Network Lineup Shuffle
Norah O'Donnell is heading back to the CBS morning show she left seven years ago. CBS News has named her co-host of CBS Mornings, pairing her with Gayle King and Nate Burleson behind the anchor desk, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
O'Donnell previously hosted the CBS morning program — then called CBS This Morning — from 2012 to 2019 alongside King, before moving to the CBS Evening News anchor chair. Executive producer Jon Tower told staff in a memo that her return is a homecoming, citing those seven years co-leading the broadcast with King.
Her exit from the morning show in 2019 was itself part of a broader anchor reshuffle. She took over CBS Evening News in a move The Hollywood Reporter described at the time as the second major anchor change at the network, following one involving King. O'Donnell then signed a multi-year extension in April 2022 that kept her in the evening chair through the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
She announced in July 2024 that she would step down from CBS Evening News after that November's election to focus on big-name interviews and documentaries as a special correspondent. Since her evening run ended, she has served as a senior correspondent and frequent fill-in anchor at CBS News. She was also recently named a full correspondent on 60 Minutes, where she had previously been a contributor — a role in which she interviewed President Trump about the White House Correspondents' Dinner in an extended segment that aired 26 April 2026, and reported on how Ted Lasso became a television phenomenon in a segment that aired 2 August 2026.
The morning-show move is one piece of a larger reworking of the CBS News broadcast lineup under Bari Weiss, who leads the network's news division. As part of the same set of changes, Tony Dokoupil was moved from CBS Mornings to anchor CBS Evening News. Meanwhile, 60 Minutes has been overhauled under new executive producer Nick Bilton.
Behind the anchor desk, the rest of the CBS Mornings team stays in place. Vlad Duthiers, Kelly O'Grady, and Adriana Diaz will continue as daily contributors. King, who signed a one-year deal with the programme in spring 2024, remains a co-host.
The pairing of O'Donnell and King brings two familiar faces back together on the same broadcast. But the reunion reportedly was not universally welcomed. In August 2026, the New York Post cited sources saying King was "not happy" about the potential return of O'Donnell as a co-anchor amid the Weiss-led revamp. TV Insider reported the same account. Neither King nor CBS News has publicly commented on that reporting.
CBS Mornings airs weekdays on CBS and streams on Paramount+, hosted from New York City.
