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All the Meet The Press Hosts, From Kristen Welker and Chuck Todd to Martha Rountree
America's longest-running television program, Meet the Press, has welcome many hosts since its first episode.
The weekly political journalism show, Meet the Press, launched as a 30-minute show hosted by then-radio journalist Martha Rountree after NBC bought the rights to air the then two-year-old radio show.
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Initially conceived as a half-hour press conference-like show in which the guest would face the moderator/host and four journalists, the format has changed a lot over the years — as have the hosts.
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But regardless of who sits in the moderator's chair, everyone knows: "If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press."
Kristen Welker
2023-Present
Kristen Welker, the long-time NBC News journalist, took over moderating duties on Meet the Press in September 2023. She also hosts Meet the Press NOW on NBC News NOW, the network's news streaming service.
She's been at NBC News since 2010, began serving as a White House Correspondent in 2011, then took over as co-host for Weekend TODAY in 2020, alongside fellow journalist Peter Alexander.
Chuck Todd
2014-2023
Chuck Todd was another NBC News veteran when he took over moderating duties in 2014.
He joined NBC News as its political director in 2007 and became the network's Chief White House Correspondent the following year. He was also named a contributing editor to Meet the Press. In 2010, he and fellow White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie launched their own MSNBC show, The Daily Rundown, which he left in 2014 to join Meet the Press. (Guthrie left in 2011 to co-host TODAY on NBC.)
From 2015 until 2022, he hosted MTP Daily on MSNBC, when it was rebranded as Meet the Press NOW and moved to the company's streaming service, NBC News NOW.
He stepped down from his moderating duties in 2023 but remains NBC News' Chief Political Analyst.
David Gregory
2008-2014
David Gregory, another long-time NBC News journalist, was named the new moderator for Meet the Press in December 2008 and served in the role for six years before leaving the network.
Before joining the show, he'd been serving as NBC News’ Chief White House Correspondent for almost eight years, and been hosting MSNBC’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (previously called Race for the White House) since March 2008. He'd been a regular substitute host on TODAY for three years (and continued in that role for several years after), a substitute moderator on Meet the Press for several months, and had been a substitute anchor for the weekend editions of NBC Nightly News.
He left both the role and the network in 2014.
Tom Brokaw
2008
Longtime NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, who was working as a Special Correspondent at the time of his appointment, served as Meet the Press moderator from June until December 2008, following the untimely death of moderator Tim Russert.
Brokaw co-anchored NBC Nightly News with Roger Mudd for 18 months starting in April 1982, and became its sole anchor in September 1983 — a position he held until 2004. (Mudd went on to be the moderator of Meet the Press in 1984.) He had previously been a co-anchor on TODAY from 1976 until 1981, and had served as the network's White House Correspondent from 1973 until 1976.
He first joined NBC News in 1966 and officially retired from the network in 2021.
Tim Russert
1991-2008
Tim Russert became the moderator of Meet the Press in 1991, and is responsible for its expansion to an hour-long program in 1992. He served in that role until his untimely death in June 2008.
Prior to taking over his duties at Meet the Press, he had become NBC News' Washington Bureau chief in 1988. He joined NBC News in 1984 as its senior vice president of Washington operations.
Garrick Utley
1989-1991
Garrick Utley moderated Meet the Press from January 1989 until December 1991.
He had joined NBC News in 1963 as a researcher and then foreign correspondent for The Huntley–Brinkley Report, which was replaced by NBC Nightly News in 1970. He was the weekend anchor for NBC Nightly News from 1971-1973 and then again from 1987-1993, and a fill-in anchor on the program throughout the interceding years. He was also a fill-in anchor on TODAY for much of the 1980s, the news anchor for Sunday TODAY from 1987-1988, and then became its co-anchor until 1992.
He left the network in 1993, and retired from journalism in 2002 to become an academic. He passed away in 2014.
Chris Wallace
1987-1988
Chris Wallace became the moderator for Meet the Press in 1987 after more than a decade at the network, starting with their owned-and-operated affiliate, WNYC in New York City, in 1975. He moved to Washington as a political correspondent for NBC News in 1978, and then became the Washington co-anchor for TODAY in 1982. Shortly thereafter, he became the network's Chief White House correspondent, a role in which he stayed until 1989. He also anchored the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News from 1982–1984 and again from 1986–1987, when he took over Meet the Press.
He departed the network after the 1988 presidential elections.
Marvin Kalb
1985-1987
Marvin Kalb took over as the sole moderator of Meet the Press in 1985 after joining NBC News in 1980, according to UPI reporting at the time. Before he started at Meet the Press, his work included a stint as Chief Diplomatic Correspondent.
He left in 1987 to found Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb
1984-1985
Veteran newsmen Kalb and Roger Mudd became co-moderators of Meet the Press in 1984 after both joining the network around the same time.
Mudd served as the co-anchor for NBC Nightly News — alongside Tom Brokaw — from April 1982 until September 1983. After leaving Meet the Press in 1985, he co-anchored the NBC News programs American Almanac and 1986 with Connie Chung. He left the network in 1987 and retired from journalism in 1993, spending time as an academic and history documentary anchor until his death in 2021.
Bill Monroe
1975-1984
Bill Monroe was both the executive producer and moderator of Meet the Press from 1975 until 1984.
He joined NBC as the news director of the New Orleans affiliate WDSU in 1954, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He became the Washington Bureau chief of NBC News in 1961 and was a frequent contributor to TODAY — work for which he won a Peabody in 1972 — before joining Meet the Press according to NBC News.
He retired from the network in 1986 and passed in 2011.
Lawrence Spivak
1966-1975
Meet the Press co-creator Lawrence Spivak, who had often served as a panelist and fill-in moderator, became the permanent moderator in 1966 and served in that role until 1975.
His last show marked 28 years for the program on NBC, and he continued as a consultant with the network until his retirement in 1989.
Spivak had created the program with journalist Martha Rountree in 1945 as a radio show for his literary magazine The American Mercury — which he bought in 1935 and sold in 1950, the New York Times reported. NBC optioned the show as a television series in 1947; the radio program ended after Spivak sold the magazine in 1950. He bought Rountree's interest in the show in 1953, and sold both to NBC in 1955.
Spivak passed away in 1994.
Ned Brooks
1953-1965
Longtime newspaperman Ned Brooks became the moderator of Meet the Press in 1953 and served in that role until 1965. He remains the second longest-serving moderator in the show's history.
He had joined NBC as a radio journalist in 1947, and retired from the network in 1967, according to the Boston Globe. He passed away in 1969.
Martha Rountree
1947-1953
Pioneering journalist Martha Rountree was the first moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, after having co-created the show with Spivak as a radio program for his then-magazine, The American Mercury.
She served as its moderator on NBC from its first show in 1947 until she sold her share in the program to Spivak in 1953 — which her daughter, Martha Wiethorn, told the Washington Post was the result of a coin flip that Rountree lost. (The reported amount was $125,000, according to the Los Angeles Times; Spivak reportedly sold it to NBC amid a bidding war two years later for $1 million.)
She launched a similar show in prime time, Press Conference, which only aired for few months on NBC before she took it elsewhere for several months. She continued to work as a journalist and public affairs show producer until 1965, when she founded her nonprofit organization, Leadership Action. She resigned from its leadership in 1988 and passed away in 1999.
