'Today' anchor Savannah Guthrie talks Trump, her new book and being a 'girl from Tucson'

Let’s get the parochial stuff about Savannah Guthrie out of the way up front.

Guthrie, a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show since 2012, was born in Australia but moved to Tucson with her family when she was 3. She graduated from Amphitheater High School and the University of Arizona (and then law school at Georgetown University).

She speaks glowingly about Tucson, and she knows The Arizona Republic is a Phoenix-based paper — she was a journalism major, after all.

“I don’t want to get like a whole Phoenix-Tucson-off, but we all know that Phoenix and Tucson have a healthy, competitive rivalry,” she said. “You can quote me as saying Tucson is the best. I’ll go out on that limb for my people.”

So there’s that.

Guthrie's new book 'Mostly What God Does' examines her faith

Guthrie now works in New York, a long way from Tucson. She interviews presidents and joins in on cooking segments, as the “Today” gig requires. She has also written a new book, “Mostly What God Does,” which comes out Tuesday, Feb. 20. As the title suggests, it’s a book about faith — hers.

“This is by far the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, the most personal thing, the most vulnerable thing,” she said. “And, you know, I was given the opportunity. Someone approached me and asked me, ‘Would you ever want to write about your faith?’

“Normally, if anyone's ever approached me about writing a book, I'm like, no way, that just seems like so much work. I have two little kids, I have a full-time job. It didn't interest me at all. But when presented with the opportunity to talk about faith, which is so important to me, and it’s exciting to me, and challenging to me, I just couldn't say no.”

Saying yes didn’t mean Guthrie was automatically comfortable with the notion.

“I told the publisher and the editor, I don't know if there will be a book at the end of this,” she said. “But I'm willing to try. So you know, I was like, nobody cash any checks. We can sign the contract, I'll try. But if it doesn't feel right, if I don't have enough to say, if at any moment I think better of this, then we've got to all be prepared to just give up and part ways.”

That didn’t happen.

“I wrote it in four to six months,” Guthrie said, “and I would write it in the back of a car on the way to work or at the kitchen table while the kids were finishing dinner. Or sometimes driving with my husband — he was driving, I had the laptop — and there was nothing easy or effortless about it. But I have to say it spilled out of me. Sometimes I would wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning thinking about it and just decide, I guess I'll just get up and write. There must be a reason I'm awake. And so that's what I decided to do, and so I'm as shocked as anyone that I wrote a book, and let alone that it's about faith.”

Don't expect Guthrie to leave 'Today' anytime soon

Don’t expect Guthrie to give up her day job, at least not anytime soon. She doesn’t anticipate writing a memoir or anything like that, and she’s still enjoying “Today.”

"I'm just a regular girl from Tucson, Arizona, (who had) no connections, no status," she said. "And I'm as shocked as anyone that I get to wake up every day and be part of this show that is iconic. It's been around 70-plus years and is bigger than any one person. I'm so happy and delighted to be there."

And why not? It's the job she wants.

“I think it's the best job in television," Guthrie said. "I love it. Because you get to do a little bit of everything. You might interview a president of the United States or secretary of State or have a legal guest at 7 a.m. And you could be roller-skating with Martha Stewart at the end of the show. What other show is like that? I love it because I think that it's very human. We all have multiple facets. None of us are one-note. And I love that the show kind of lets us be who we are.”

It hasn't been all fun and games; Guthrie hosted a town hall with Donald Trump in 2020

The interviewing presidents thing is no exaggeration. In 2020, Guthrie hosted a town hall with Donald Trump that could serve as a primer on how to keep his lies in check, pressing him for answers and demanding follow-ups. It was textbook journalism, although sometimes no one seems to be reading that book anymore. Guthrie obviously has, though she downplayed the compliment.

“I approach it the same no matter what,” she said, “and I think preparation is the key. Interviewing any president is difficult. It's one of the most high-pressure situations you can find yourself in. And, every president, every political figure, they're all different. And they all present a different set of challenges. So I think it's just one of those occasions where you always have to study really hard and, no matter who it is, you have to be just ready for the unpredictable.”

Of course, there’s more to it than that, especially now, when some people have decided if they don’t like the truth, they’ll just make up some of their own.

“Obviously, we live in a culture of misinformation,” she said. “And I am a firm believer in all of the tried-and-true ideals of journalism — fairness, accuracy, precision. We all need to stick to those things. And the media is bigger now. It covers a wide terrain. It covers opinion, it covers news, quasi-entertainment. But I think for journalism, I always say go back to the basics, go to the fundamentals. And that's kind of that's the north star for me. That's what I try to do. I think that's what we're called to do. And I think it's more important than ever, actually.”

And where did she learn all this? Guess.

Guthrie learned the basics at the University of Arizona

Guthrie majored in print journalism at UA, not broadcast. “I had professors who had been journalists, had been reporters — for The Arizona Republic, for example,” she said. “And they really taught those kinds of basic, bare-bones journalism principles: the five Ws and the H. And, you know, we would run out and cover city council meetings or the board of supervisors and honestly, that bedrock foundation is something I always have carried with me and continue to carry with me.

"And a lot of that is also the principles of journalism around Fairness and Accuracy. That, I think, was the thing I first learned at the University of Arizona in the journalism school. And so I always think about my old-school professors. They're still with me, I can still hear their voices. And I'm so happy for that. Media, it’s changed a ton since then. But those foundational aspects of journalism really haven't — or really shouldn’t.”

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Savannah Guthrie talks about Donald Trump interviews and her new book