Chuck Todd is leaving Meet The Press, NBC announced on Sunday.
Todd confirmed his exit from the program on his show Sunday. In a memo to staff Sunday morning, NBC News President of Editorial Rebecca Blumenstein and NBC News Senior Vice President of Politics Carrie Budoff Brown told staff that Kristen Welker will take the helm in September.
During his closing monologue, Todd said he’d rather leave “a little bit too soon than stay a tad too long” and let his work consume him, which would ultimately pull him away from his family. He commended the show’s successes throughout his tenure and lauded its continued longevity.
ADVERTISEMENT
“When I took over Meet the Press, it was a Sunday show that had a lot of people questioning whether it still could have a place in the modern media space,” Todd said at the end of his show Sunday. “Well, I think we’ve answered that question and then some.”
Todd took over the show in 2014 from moderator David Gregory, turning the brand into a franchise for the network. Last year, NBC launched a dedicated website for the outlet alongside the daily MSNBC show’s move to NBC News Now, the outlet’s streaming service.
“Under Chuck’s thoughtful and passionate leadership, Meet the Press has sustained its historic role as the indispensable news program on Sunday mornings,” Blumenstein and Brown wrote in their memo. “Through his penetrating interviews with many of the most important newsmakers, the show has played an essential role in politics and policy, routinely made front-page news, and framed the thinking in Washington and beyond.”
Yet, throughout his tenure, he has also been criticized as deferential in his approach toward Republican lawmakers. During his White House Correspondents Dinner monologue last year, Trevor Noah chided Todd for his interview style.
“How are you doing?” Noah asked Todd. “I’d ask a follow-up, but I know you don’t know what those are.”
Todd will become NBC News’s chief political analyst, the two wrote, and continue producing his Chuck Toddcast and Meet the Press Reports podcasts.
The move for Welker, NBC News’ chief White House correspondent and a co-anchor of NBC’s Weekend TODAY, isn’t entirely unprecedented. She has often served as a fill-in host for Todd and hosts Meet the Press NOW on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Daily Beast also reported last year that Welker was being groomed to take over for Todd.
“[Welker] has masterfully moderated primary and general election presidential debates and her sharp questioning of lawmakers is a masterclass in political interviews,” Blumenstein and Brown wrote. “She is a dogged reporter who relishes getting big scoops and is widely admired throughout the bureau and the network for her deeply collaborative nature.”
Todd also sang her praises in his monologue. “I’ve had the privilege of working with her from essentially her first day and let me just say she’s the right person in the right moment,” he said. “This is exactly how I always hoped this would end, that I’d be passing the baton to her.”
Todd signed off by brushing off the criticism he’s received, marking them as indicators of a proper performance as a political journalist.
“If you do this job seeking popularity, you are doing this job incorrectly,” he said. “I take the attacks from partisans as compliments. And I take the genuine compliments with a grain of salt when they come from partisans. The goal of this and every Meet the Press episode is to do all of the following in one informative hour: make you mad, make you think, shake your head in disapproval at some point, and nod your head in approval at others. If you do all of that in one hour of this show, we’ve done our job.”
