Matt Lauer Reportedly the Cause of Longtime Tension Between Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb

Savannah Guthrie’s recent reunion with Hoda Kotb on Today wasn’t as joyful as they made it out to be, Rob Shuter has revealed.

“Savannah and Hoda have never got along,” The Daily Enquirer’s editor at large revealed on the Monday, April 20 episode of Sirius XM’s The Megyn Kelly Show.

“This is very interesting to me, because they’ve been trying to pitch us for a very long time now about how it’s all a family,” host Megyn Kelly, who had her own show during the third hour of Today at NBC from 2017 to 2018, remarked.

“You are getting to the actual truth, which is it is not a family,” she continued. “It is a cutthroat, very nasty industry where everyone’s trying to oust everyone.”

“It’s vicious,” Shuter agreed. “I’ve worked in magazines, I’ve worked in gossip, I’ve worked with celebrities. I’ve had my own morning show. There was nothing more nasty than … a morning show. It was so brutal.”

The root of Guthrie, 54, and Kotb’s discontent, Shuter claimed, was former cohost Matt Lauer.

“Matt did not really like Savannah that much, and to punish her, he promoted Hoda,” the author — whose new novel It Started With a Whisper hit stands today — revealed. “Well when he got fired, Savannah didn’t want Hoda, she wanted Willie Geist. But nobody watched. And so that’s why [Kotb] got the job.”

Kotb, 61, joined Guthrie as a Today cohost in 2017 and stepped down in early 2025. She returned amid Guthrie’s extended absence during the search for her mother, Nancy.

As the National Enquirer has reported, Nancy, 84, was reported missing on February 1 and has still not been found.

“NBC really leaned into this story,” Shuter told Kelly, noting that the story was heavily covered in a Dateline special, on the NBC nightly news and on Today. “I think they did it in a decent way … but at the same time, I’m hearing from people inside the building that there was a little bit of an opportunity here for the network to increase their ratings and to get people really behind the Today show, which really is neck and neck with Good Morning America.”

Following a tearful interview with Kotb for Today in late March, Guthrie returned to the show on April 13.

Producers were expecting a big crowd outside, Shuter, claimed, but “the ‘Savannah card,’ didn’t quite turn out to be what they wanted it, what they hoped, what they expected it to be.”

“And I think that’s because it’s a really complicated story, it’s a really frustrating story, there’s so many pieces of this story, they just don’t add up,” Shuter said.

People with any information regarding the case are asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). You may also contact your local FBI office, the nearest American Embassy or Consulate, or you can submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov.