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On Monday, Savannah Guthrie made her much-anticipated return to NBC’s “Today” show, resuming her role at the anchor desk after a challenging two-month hiatus following her mother’s disappearance. As the show kicked off, Guthrie, with a mix of determination and anticipation, declared, “Here we go, ready or not. Let’s do the news.”
Following a rundown of the day’s headlines, Guthrie expressed her gratitude to viewers, saying, “We are so glad that you started our week with us, and it’s good to be home.” Her co-anchor, Craig Melvin, warmly welcomed her back, affirming, “It’s good to have you back at home.”
In a show of camaraderie, she addressed her longtime colleague Al Roker with a cheerful “Good morning, Sunshine,” as he noted the pleasure of seeing her return to the set. As the initial 25-minute segment concluded, Guthrie and Melvin shared a celebratory high-five.
Emotions ran high during the show’s final half-hour, as Guthrie joined her team in front of enthusiastic fans at the Rockefeller Center studio. She was visibly moved when she spotted a supporter sporting a “Welcome home Savannah” shirt, leading her to clutch Jenna Bush Hager’s arm for support and express heartfelt gratitude to the audience.
Guthrie says it’s hard to go forward not knowing what happened
Guthrie, a familiar face in morning television since 2012, acknowledged the personal transformation she has undergone amidst this ordeal. The uncertainty surrounding her mother, Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, believed to be an abduction from her Arizona home, has profoundly impacted her. Despite the unknowns, Guthrie is determined to move forward with resilience.
Despite an intense search involving thousands of federal and local officers and volunteers, there has been no sign of the 84-year-old mother of three since she was reported missing Feb. 1.
The “Today” show has followed the story closely for the past two months, but it wasn’t mentioned during the first hour of her return on Monday. Bringing things back to normal was clearly intentional: Her return wasn’t referenced during interviews with NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez at the White House and military analyst Steve Warren on the show’s set.
Hoda Kotb, the former anchor who had filled in for Guthrie for much of the past two months and interviewed her former colleague, wasn’t on set Monday.
“Today” has seen a ratings boost over the past two months and has even eclipsed ABC’s “Good Morning America” as the leader in the morning show ratings. The shows aren’t the profit generators they once were for the networks, but the rivalry is still intense.
“Today” averaged 3.1 million viewers for the first three months of the year, up nearly 9% in an era most broadcast programs lose viewers. It’s hard to tell how much the Guthrie story had to do with that: NBC also aired the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in February, and both events tend to help a morning show’s ratings.
“Good Morning America” averaged 2.93 million viewers, up 2% over 2025 while “CBS Mornings” plunged 17% to 1.76 million, according to the Nielsen company.
As part of a video message released by her New York church on Easter Sunday, Guthrie spoke about feeling “moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment.” But she said the resurrection is not fully celebrated “if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death.”
In announcing her return to NBC’s flagship morning show, Guthrie said she was uncertain whether she’ll feel like she still belongs.
“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness,” she said just over a week ago on “Today” during her first interview since the disappearance. “I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family.”
She didn’t anticipate faking her way through the show, which is normally light-hearted with a mix of serious, breaking news.
Guthrie’s mom had made occasional visits to show’s set
There had been a great deal of speculation about whether she would return.
“I want to smile, and when I do it will be real,” she told Hoda Kotb, who came back to “Today” to fill in while Guthrie focused on the search. “Being there is joyful, and when it’s not I’ll say so.”
Nancy Guthrie made occasional appearances on “Today” over the years, once taking part in a cooking demonstration and surprising her daughter on the set. When Savannah Guthrie returned to her hometown of Tucson in 2025 for a segment recorded for the show, the two visited one of their favorite restaurants and talked about their love of Arizona.
The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother.
Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will after finding blood near the doorstep of her home in the foothills outside Tucson. The FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night. Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the first weeks after she vanished.
But attention has faded from an investigation that was declared to be a top priority for the FBI and local authorities. Investigators have not released new evidence in weeks and say the number of tips has slowed. The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department both said late last week that they had no updates.
Early on, some media outlets reported receiving ransom messages tied to the case. Guthrie said she and her siblings responded to two that they believed were real and offered to pay.
Guthrie said her celebrity status might be the reason her mother was taken, but said that possibility was “too much to bear.”
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Associated Press correspondents John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.