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Savannah Guthrie reflected on how the ongoing search for Nancy Guthrie has strengthened her bond with her colleague Jenna Bush Hager.
“You know how much I adore you. I know all of us feel that way when you walked in the makeup room earlier. There were claps and hugs because you are beloved,” Bush Hager, 44, said during the Monday, June 8, episode of Today With Jenna & Sheinelle.
Bush Hager noted that it was National Best Friend Day, so the duo were “celebrating the right way” with Savannah, 54, filling in during cohost Sheinelle Jones’ absence.
“I’ve just marveled, as somebody who knows you and loves you, at your strength. You coming back here and leading this ship, which I know has not been easy and yet here you are, morning after morning, getting out of bed. Spending the mornings with us. I know so many of you at home feel the same way about you,” Bush Hager said, while wiping a tear from her eyes.
Savannah, for her part, became emotional at Bush Hager’s sentiment before reflecting on her return to the show amid her mom’s disappearance. (Nancy was reported missing in Arizona in February, with the investigation still ongoing.)
“First of all, I can’t even look at you every day without crying. You are my best friend. It’s really hard to come back and I’ve been trying so hard to hold it together,” Savannah said. “I promise I will. This show and this hour especially is about joy. Having you, people behind the scenes, people in my ear, the producers, our cast mates. When I see you in the morning, I know that you see me. No matter what is going on.”
She continued, “Sometimes it’s almost too much, ‘cause I feel like to do the job, I gotta keep it together. Pull it together, you know. But I’m happy to be back. It’s the two hours of my day — it’s not that I’m not thinking about it, because I am — but it’s something to do. It brings me a lot of joy to be with everybody. But no, it’s not easy.”
Savannah noted that appearing on the NBC morning show each day has been a “little respite” from coping with the disappearance of her mom.
“You are my family. I don’t think if I had any other job I would’ve tried to come back, you know? But I just felt like, what else should I do? My mom would’ve said the same, like, ‘Honey, just keep going. Just keep going.’ So I am,” Savannah said. “It’s hard when you are with your best friend to not be real. So I was a little afraid, in a way, to do this show with you.”
She continued, “You’ve asked me before, which is so sweet, like, ‘Come on, do you want to fill in?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I’m ready.’ Because I couldn’t look at you — in this kind of setting, where we just talk about life — and not tell the truth about my life. I know maybe people wonder, ‘What’s going on? How is she able to do that job? Is she not thinking about it? Did she forget?’ No. Never. Never.”
Savannah went on to share that her family “still need everybody’s prayers,” and they wish that someone would “call and say what they know.” After reflecting on their shared value of faith, Savannah shared that she cries “every morning on the way to work” and “every morning on the way home.”
“I’m grateful to have good friends and to be able to come to such a beautiful and joyous and supportive place. Like so many people out there, you know, you can hold all of these things together. I try to tell my kids that, too,” she said. “We can hold our sadness and we can hold our joy. If you don’t believe it, just watch me. I’m going to show you.”
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