Hoda Kotb is returning to the Today show while co-host Savannah Guthrie remains with her family in Arizona as the search for her missing mother, Nancy Guthrie, enters its second week.
Co-anchor Craig Melvin announced on Monday’s show that Kotb, who left the NBC morning show a little over a year ago, would be filling in while Guthrie is out.
“You know what, Craig, we always talk about our show is a family. We are a family. I’m part of the family, and I’m happy to be with you because we show up for each other.” said Kotb.
Kotb has made a number of guest appearances on Today since stepping down from her role in early 2025. She was also on Friday’s Today, anchoring a segment and reflecting on Guthrie’s situation.
On Monday’s Today, Melvin, Kotb and co-hosts Carson Daly and Al Roker also took time to speak about the challenges of having to report on their colleague and friend’s missing mother amid other news stories.
“Our Today family continues to navigate uncharted territory, balancing the updates on the search for Savannah’s mom with all the other stories of the day, like we normally do,” Melvin said. “But we know things are far from normal right now, so folks we are asking for your grace as we continue to do this.”
Kotb added: “I mean, paramount through all of this, Savannah and her family are our top priority. In addition to that, there is also a job to do.”
“And we’re going to do our best,” Daly added. “It’s certainly not easy to do our jobs, and we’re doing that obviously for her and for you too, the viewers.”
Roker said, “And in a sense we’re able to do this because we know that’s actually what Savannah would want us to do.”
During what’s become a daily segment on the search for Guthrie’s missing mother, now in day nine of her disappearance in what authorities believe was an abduction, NBC News’ Liz Kreutz reported that the video released by Guthrie and her siblings on Saturday was in response to a new note received by a Tucson TV station on Friday.
Still it remains unclear, as Kreutz added, whether this note was sent by the same person who sent an earlier ransom note to TMZ and other media outlets earlier last week, if either note is legitimate and if either were indeed sent by people connected to Guthrie’s mom’s disappearance.
In the video, posted to Guthrie’s Instagram account on Saturday, Guthrie says in part, “We received your message, and we understand.”
She adds, “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Guthrie pulled out of covering the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina for NBC, with the opening ceremony commentators acknowledging her absence on Friday.
“We’re certainly without a very important and beloved member of our team tonight,” host Terry Gannon said of Savannah. “She is dearly missed by everybody.”
Also over the weekend, prior to the release of Guthrie’s video, President Donald Trump, who has spoken to Guthrie and provided federal law-enforcement support in the search for her missing mom, said he heard there were “very strong” clues in the case, adding, “I think we could have some answers coming up fairly soon.”
Meanwhile federal and local law-enforcement authorities in Arizona continued to search for information in the disappearance of Guthrie’s 84-year-old mother, yesterday investigating a septic tank in her backyard and earlier in the weekend removing a car from her garage. There continues to be no suspect or person of interest in the case.
