After nearly a month away following her mother’s mysterious disappearance and the nation’s search, Savannah Guthrie has officially returned to Today
The new normal at NBC’s “Today” is anything but.
Anchors at the long-running A.M. franchise have grappled with many challenges over the years, ranging from personal health issues to talent transitions, but this past month has presented a set of circumstances that are believed to be without parallel: Nancy Guthrie, mother of longtime “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, has been missing since January 31, and an agonizing search is in progress around her home in Arizona, leaving producers not only to manage coverage thoughtfully, but also to ponder how to fill Savannah Guthrie’s seat for an undefined interim.
“This situation is tragically unprecedented, and I think it’s really hard to compare anything else to what Savannah and her family are dealing with right now,” says Katie Couric, who famously worked as a co- anchor at “Today” between 1991 and 2006, during a recent interview. “I do think morning shows are living, breathing organisms, and when something happens to a member of these very close-knit teams, it is devastating, I think, to everyone. I think the ‘Today Show’ team is doing the best they possibly can, and it must be excruciating to try to carry on, but also to cover a story about a beloved colleague.”
How has “Today” handled the matter? Hoda Kotb, the veteran “Today” co-anchor who left full-time duties early last year, has rejoined the show on an interim basis, and is holding forth with Craig Melvin. Kotb will stay while Guthrie is with her family, according to a person familiar with the matter. Guthrie is expected to return to the show on her own timeline, even if she requires a significant period to feel ready to do so, this person says.
Each morning, Melvin and Kotb inform viewers that their colleague “remains with her family,” and typically offer a segment about the search for Nancy Guthrie. In the case’s earliest days, the Guthrie story led the “Today” news report, but in more recent broadcasts, the anchors have tackled severe weather, the arrest of former Prince Andrew in the U.K. and the recent State of the Union speech before turning to the Guthrie case. Liz Kreutz, an NBC News correspondent, remains on the ground in Arizona to keep up on the latest details. “Today” has also offered an array of stories about people lending support to the Guthrie family, including a sorority at Savannah Guthrie’s alma mater in Arizona and neighbors of Nancy Guthrie who keep looking out for new clues.
Interest in the case remains high. NBC News broke into programming with a special report earlier this week, anchored by Kotb and Melvin, detailing a $1 million reward from the Guthrie family for their mothers’ recovery. Savannah Guthrie delivered an emotional message asking for information on her mother, while nodding to the dire circumstances surrounding her absence.
Having Kotb on hand offers a viable solution for NBC and “Today” producers. She’s already affiliated with the show, and adding someone new to the mix during such a difficult moment could be ill advised The introduction of someone less known to viewers to fill in more regularly for Guthrie — even on an interim basis — could alienate the audience, which has a years-long relationship with her and doesn’t want to see her treated poorly, particularly under duress. The first two hours of “Today” generated nearly $203.5 million in 2025, according to Guideline, a tracker of ad spending.
“They are fortunate that Hoda, who is a familiar and beloved face, is able to step in so seamlessly under very difficult circumstances,” says Couric. “I think they are trying to handle it as well as they possibly can.”
Amid an emotional and chaotic era for the program come some potential reasons to take a breath: Support for Savannah Guthrie and interest in her family’s plight have buoyed “Today” even as its staff tries to master difficult terrain.
Morning-show audiences have tuned in more to “Today” in recent weeks. Viewership for “Today” for the five days ended February 20 rose 19%, or 517,000 viewers, according to data from Nielsen, compared to the year-earlier period. That viewership hike follows one of 30% in the prior week and one of 23% in week before that.
Audiences for main rival “Good Morning America” on ABC ticked up 6% for the five days ended February 20, while viewership for “CBS Mornings” was off 14%.
It’s not clear how much of a boost can be attributed to the Winter Olympics. In 2022, “Good Morning America” won more viewers overall than “Today” during NBC’s first week of coverage of the extravaganza from Beijing, the first time it was able to do so in the first week of a Winter Olympics in more than three decades. Next week’s ratings report could be a pivotal one for the program, as it will reveal how much of the surge at “Today” has been due to a halo effect tied to the Olympics and how much the Guthrie crisis has galvanized the potential audience for the show.
There also appears to be an internal loyalty to Savannah Guthrie, who has served as the “glue” of the program since being elevated to an anchor in “Today’s” flagship 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. hours in 2012. Guthrie has proven instrumental in helping “Today” muscle past some difficult moments.
She replaced Ann Curry, who exited in an emotional moment that soured some viewers on the program and boosted interest in “GMA,” and played a critical role during a rebuilding period for the show. It was Guthrie and Kotb who were tasked on the morning of November 29, 2017 , with informing viewers that longtime anchor Matt Lauer had been ousted by NBC, which cited “inappropriate sexual behavior,” a claim that he denied. She has kept up with the demanding morning news role even while over the years juggling an eye injury resulting from a mishap at home, and, more recently, surgery on her vocal cords, which she has used daily for years in service to NBC.
She has helped NBC in some critical spots as well, and not just during Election Night or special reports. She presents NBC’s coverage of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, a spectacle that has taken on more economic importance to the network in recent years as advertisers hunt for programs that draw large, simultaneous crowds. In 2020, she boosted NBC after it made a controversial decision to hold a town hall with President Donald Trump opposite a similar event by then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden, which was being televised by ABC. Guthrie kept a tight rein on the proceedings. “You’re the president, you’re not like somebody’s crazy uncle who can retweet whatever,” Guthrie told President Trump after asking why he had recently retweeted a conspiracy theory.
“These are serious times we are living in,” she told Variety in January of 2020 while speaking about her “Today” role. “You can start interviewing the Vice President of the United States, and you can end with Oprah on a beach. That can happen. That does happen all the time. That’s about really measuring what the audience expects, and I think we try to approach the news with substance and sophistication, and I don’t think we are flashy.”
In the earliest hours of the morning, before the “Today” anchors get to the studio and get ready to go on the air, you can sometimes find Guthrie in the hair and make-up room, talking to reporters and correspondents like Kirsten Welker about the nuances of one of the stories set to air in the first minutes of the program. Staffers at “Today” would like to hear her voice filling that room once again.
Gavin Newsom Has A New Problem - $1 Billion Fraud Scheme Discovered
Los Angeles has a homeless crisis. Everyone knows this. What California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s walk through Skid Row just exposed is something considerably darker than simple government incompetence: there is an organized, well-funded operation actively working to make sure the crisis never ends.
Meet LA CAN — the Los Angeles Community Action Network. While Karen Bass holds press conferences about her commitment to solving homelessness and Gavin Newsom crisscrosses the country pretending California is fixable, LA CAN has been in the courts blocking every attempt to actually clear encampments, remove drug users from public sidewalks, and restore basic safety to neighborhoods that have been abandoned by the government supposedly responsible for them.
Their legal theory is breathtaking in its cynicism: homeless individuals camping illegally on public sidewalks have personal property rights that police cannot violate by enforcing the law. The courts, remarkably, have entertained this argument long enough to give LA CAN repeated injunctive wins against cleanup operations. When Hilton walked through Skid Row and asked why police weren’t clearing the encampments he was stepping around, the answer was simple: LA CAN had obtained legal orders preventing it.
Here is the economic reality that explains everything you need to know about LA CAN’s actual incentives. The city of Los Angeles is spending nearly $1 billion annually on homelessness — and the problem keeps growing. LA CAN has positioned itself as the indispensable advocacy organization standing between the homeless population and whatever the city is trying to do about it. Money flows to LA CAN because homelessness exists. The moment homelessness is meaningfully reduced, the money stops. So does the relevance. So does the organizational purpose.
This is not speculation. It’s the inevitable logic of activist organizations that have confused their existence with their mission. LA CAN was supposedly founded to help homeless people. It now deploys lawyers to prevent the city from removing homeless people from sidewalks where they are actively dying of drug overdoses. It has a choral group — the Freedom Singers, composed of formerly homeless individuals — that has appeared on national television to raise the organization’s profile and drive donations. The formerly homeless members are now raising money for an organization legally fighting to keep people in the condition they escaped.
You genuinely cannot make it make sense. Unless you follow the money. Then it makes perfect sense.
Karen Bass’s office, according to reporting from Hilton’s walkthrough, actively coordinates with LA CAN — the same organization blocking her own city’s cleanup efforts. This is the California Democratic machine in perfect miniature: politicians who campaign on solving a crisis, nonprofits that fundraise off the crisis, lawyers who litigate to preserve the crisis, and residents who live with the consequences of all three.
One billion dollars a year. Skid Row looks exactly like it did a decade ago.
California doesn’t have a homelessness problem. It has a corruption problem. The homelessness is just the most visible symptom.
Thune Breaks With Trump, Backs Cornyn After Paxton Endorsement
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday he will continue supporting Sen. John Cornyn despite President Donald Trump endorsing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in one of the most closely watched Republican Senate primaries of the 2026 cycle.
Speaking to reporters following Trump’s endorsement announcement, Thune praised Cornyn as “a principled conservative” and an “effective senator” for Texas, signaling a rare split between Senate Republican leadership and the president.
“Cornyn is a principled conservative. He is a very effective senator for the state of Texas,” Thune said.
“None of us can control what the president does. That doesn’t change the way I feel. I will continue to be supportive of Senator Cornyn in his re-election,” Thune added.
The comments came just hours after Trump formally endorsed Paxton on Truth Social, delivering a major boost to the Texas attorney general as he seeks to unseat Cornyn in the Republican runoff election.
In his endorsement, Trump criticized Cornyn for insufficient loyalty during politically difficult periods of his presidency.
“Ken Paxton has been a warrior for Texas values and for our America First agenda,” Trump wrote. He added that Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
The endorsement immediately intensified an already bitter and nationally significant Republican primary battle that has exposed growing tensions inside the GOP between establishment Senate Republicans and Trump-aligned populists.
Early voting in the runoff began Monday and continues through Friday, with Election Day set for May 26.
Despite the internal divisions, Thune expressed confidence Republicans would retain control of the Senate in November.
“I’m very confident we’ll hang on — and maybe even expand the majority of the United States Senate,” Thune said.
Republicans currently hold a six-seat Senate majority. Democrats would need a net gain of four seats to retake control of the chamber.
Several races, including contests in Maine, Michigan, and North Carolina, are currently viewed as highly competitive.
The Texas race has become particularly important because Democrats believe a bruising Republican runoff could weaken the eventual GOP nominee heading into the general election against Democratic candidate James Talarico.
Recent polling has suggested an unusually competitive general election environment in Texas. One survey released Monday reportedly showed both Cornyn and Paxton running roughly even with Talarico in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.
That possibility has alarmed some Republicans, particularly moderates concerned that Paxton’s legal controversies and polarizing political image could jeopardize a seat long considered safely Republican.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski openly criticized Trump’s endorsement Tuesday, warning it could backfire politically.
“I was supremely disappointed,” Murkowski said. “How does that help strengthen the president’s hand when we lose a state like Texas?”
Paxton has remained a dominant figure among Texas conservatives despite years of legal and political controversies, including securities fraud charges that were later resolved and an impeachment battle in the Texas legislature from which he was ultimately acquitted by the state Senate.
Trump allies have framed the race as a test of loyalty to the president and the broader America First movement, while Cornyn supporters argue the longtime senator offers stability, fundraising strength, and legislative experience critical for maintaining Republican control of the Senate.
Cornyn, who has served in the Senate since 2002 and previously chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has longstanding ties to GOP leadership and donor networks in Washington. But critics on the right have increasingly portrayed him as part of the party establishment out of step with the Republican base.
Paxton has sought to capitalize on that frustration, presenting himself as a fighter aligned more closely with Trump’s populist agenda on immigration, election integrity, and federal power.
The runoff has also become a broader proxy battle over the future direction of Senate Republicans after Trump’s sweeping victories reshaped the party.
