Today Show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie was able to pivot back to her hard news roots on Oct. 15, 2020, when she hosted a live town hall on NBC with President Donald Trump. The former NBC News White House correspondent vigorously grilled the 74-year-old about the coronavirus, his tax returns, Trump’s often outrageous tweets and other major topics, after he went in on the 48-year-old former attorney and her network earlier in the day at a North Carolina campaign rally. To the consternation of many voters — and network employees — NBC gave Trump the plum spot opposite Democratic rival Joe Biden‘s live Town Hall on ABC, after the 77-year-old refused to do a live in person version with Trump following his recent battle with COVID-19.
“So you know I’m being set up tonight,” Trump told the audience in North Carolina. “I’m doing this town hall with Concast, C-O-N, con, cause it’s a con job.” He then declared, “It’s NBC, the worst…Home of Sleepy-Eyed Chuck Todd and some others,” he snarked about the Meet The Press host. “I figured, what the hell, we get a free hour on television,” Trump bloviated while mocking Savannah by saying sarcastically, “she’s always lovely, isn’t she?” We’ve got five things to know about Savannah.
1. Savannah has a law degree. After getting her B.A. in journalism from the University of Arizona in 1993 and working in broadcasting, Savannah returned to school and graduated magna cum laude from Washington D.C.’s Georgetown University Law Center in 2002.
2. Savannah was born in Australia. Despite growing up in Tucson Arizona, Savannah was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1971, as that’s where her father had a job at the time.
3. Savannah’s Today Show hosting gig came with some controversy. She was elevated to hosting the primary 7am-9am show alongside Matt Lauer in the summer 2012, after popular co-host and longtime Today news anchor Ann Curry was allegedly forced out by management at Lauer’s urging. Savannah had previously hosted the show’s 9am hour with Natalie Morales and Al Roker. She also worked as Today’s Chief Legal Editor. Matt was fired by NBC in Nov. 2017 for “inappropriate behavior,” and Savannah has since co-anchored with Hoda Kotb.
4. Savannah is a wife an mom. After four years of dating, she married Democratic political consultant Michael Feldman on March 15, 2014 in a ceremony in her hometown of Tucson. The couple welcomed a daughter they named Vale later that year on August 13, 2014. Son Charles followed on December 8, 2016.
5. Savannah is not named after the gorgeous coastal city in Georgia. The journalist is sweetly named after her great-grandmother, who had the name long before “Savannah” became a popular girls moniker beginning in the 1990s.