Elisabeth Hasselbeck will serve as a guest host on CBS Mornings Monday through Wednesday next week, the network said, appearing alongside regular hosts Gayle King and Nate Burleson and joining Vladimir Duthiers and Adrianna Diaz on the set.
Hasselbeck’s appearance will be limited to the later, conversational portions of the program — she will not appear during segments tied to hard news or politics — and is expected to surface in the show’s Talk of the Table discussions and in segments on parenting, pop culture and entertainment.
Norah O’Donnell is scheduled to appear throughout Wednesday’s telecast, and Inside Edition host Eva Pilgrim is among other guest hosts expected to rotate onto the program over the summer as CBS tests new talent.
The guest-hosting sprint comes as CBS Mornings tries to narrow a sizable audience gap with its rivals. For the five days ended June 5, CBS Mornings averaged about 1.69 million viewers, compared with nearly 2.98 million for Today and 2.7 million for GMA. In the key 25-to-54 demographic, CBS drew roughly 285,000 viewers versus 640,000 for Today and 470,000 for GMA for that same period.
That shortfall has prompted a broader plan of rotating guest hosts through the summer as CBS News searches for ways to refresh the morning lineup; the network has leaned on Gayle King and Nate Burleson since Tony Dokoupil moved to anchor the CBS Evening News earlier this year.
Hasselbeck is a familiar television figure — she first gained traction on Survivor and later co-hosted ABC’s The View and Fox & Friends — but she does not have formal journalism training. She returned to The View as a guest host in March and sparred on-air with Megyn Kelly, at one point exclaiming, "How dare you, Megyn Kelly?" The choice to bring someone with a partisan profile and a nontraditional journalism background into a mainstream morning program is the evident gamble behind the booking.
The selection underscores the balance CBS is testing: can a recognizable personality who draws attention in lifestyle and culture conversations help steady or grow viewership without compromising the program’s handling of serious news? Hasselbeck has been outspoken on issues such as abortion and has a conservative track record from prior shows, a fact that will shape how viewers perceive her segments even when they are nonpolitical.
The network has not said whether Hasselbeck is being evaluated for a longer-term role; her three-day run is explicitly a trial within a broader summer slate of guest hosts. More names are expected to rotate through the program, but the network has not released a schedule beyond next week.
For viewers, the immediate takeaway is practical: expect Hasselbeck in lighter, conversational blocks Monday through Wednesday next week alongside the show’s regular anchors, with hard-news and political coverage left to the established news roster. For the network, the clear next step is measuring whether those segments move the needle in audience size or the coveted 25–54 demo; whether Hasselbeck returns or is considered for a permanent position will depend on those results — and CBS has not committed publicly to making that choice.
