what happened to david gregory on today show

Photograph by Raeford Dwyer.

David Gregory was driving through the mountains of New Hampshire when he got the call that no TV personality ever wants to answer. It was Baronial xiv, 2014, a Thursday. Gregory and his wife were on their manner to choice upwards their kids from summertime military camp, according to friends. On the line was an executive in NBC's New York headquarters, telling Gregory one time and for all that his run every bit moderator of Run across the Press was over.

This wasn't exactly news to the Sunday-morning host. Meet the Printing's ratings had been tanking for several years. And for the last week or so, Gregory and the network had been decorated negotiating his exit package.

Simply the deal wasn't finished, and Gregory had planned to be back in Washington to host the bear witness that Dominicus. Then the phone call from New York took him by surprise.

The executive explained that NBC wouldn't be able to proceed his departure under wraps much longer. Rumors of Gregory's demise had been swirling for several months. Navel-gazers in the Washington and New York printing corps had been gleefully press every concluding shred of gossip they could forage. Now reporters were circumvoluted once again, and it looked similar the network was about to lose control of the story. The announcement would have to come today.

Gregory and his bosses wanted to intermission the news themselves, and they had to scramble to finalize the official line on his leave.

They were also late.

Before they could get their stories directly—and before they finally sewed upwards Gregory'southward severance—CNN reported that he was out and that his chief rival, NBC White Firm contributor Chuck Todd, would take over as moderator.

Afterward being scooped, Gregory was compelled to take to Twitter to put his own spin on the ouster. "I leave NBC every bit I came—humbled and grateful," he tweeted. "I love journalism and serving every bit moderator of MTP was the highest honor there is."

It was the terminal indignity in a chaotic and embarrassing fall from the top.

For six years, David Gregory had owned the most coveted chore in political journalism. Meet the Printing first aired in 1947 and is now the longest-running show on network television. It started equally a half-hr press conference and evolved into the place where Presidents came to make news—John F. Kennedy chosen it "the 51st country."

Just under Gregory, the virtually prestigious political franchise in Washington media had collapsed. Although he took over at a time when eyeballs were declining beyond the board because of 24-60 minutes cable news networks and a constant stream of internet talking heads, no Sunday show plunged further than his. Between 2008, when Gregory took over, and terminal summer, but earlier he left, Meet the Printing lost 43 percent of its viewers and dropped from commencement to third identify in the ratings.

Ratings for Meet the Press plummet when Gregory takes over as host.

Information technology would be easy to write off Gregory's ouster equally a garden-variety network-talent striking job. No one in Tv tin hide from the numbers, and Gregory'south record had made him a articulate target for NBC executives. But there was more to his downfall than Nielsen data. Nasty internal sabotage, Television receiver-size egos clawing for his job, and a new NBC News boss looking to blow upward convention all contributed to Gregory'due south demise.

For Comcast, NBC's new corporate owner, there was more at stake. The fight wasn't just well-nigh saving a national treasure. A strong Meet the Press helps more than the bottom line—it provides instant credibility in Washington for a notoriously despised company looking to command both the shows we watch and the pipes that evangelize them.

As such, a close look at the disharmonism is also a chance to get a close-up on the present and hereafter of Boob tube news.

Although Chuck Todd (center) jockeyed to fill up the "Come across the Press" moderator's chair after his mentor Tim Russert (right) died of a sudden in 2008, the network idea he was too dark-green and went with David Gregory (left) instead—a choice it would come up to regret. Photograph of Gregory, Todd, and Russert by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Encounter the Press was never David Gregory's dream chore—nor was he the network's first option after Tim Russert died.

America loved Russert. The plump, rumpled newsman was a consummate Washington operator. Yet he projected himself as the folksy son of a garbage collector who'd never lost affect with his roots. The show, which predated its CBS and ABC competitors, was a third-place backwater when Russert took over in 1991. Within six years, it was on top. Critics moaned that Russert wasn't the inquisitor he pretended to be, but on his watch the prove turned into a greenbacks machine that reportedly earned a $lx-million annual profit.

Because the program reached an flush, educated, and influential audience—and consistently crush CBS's Face the Nation and ABC's This Week—it could accuse higher advertising rates than other news shows. "It was ever a profit center," says Bill Wheatley, a former executive vice president of NBC News.

All that changed on a Friday the 13th in June 2008. Early that afternoon, Russert stepped out of his office in NBC's Washington bureau, greeted a colleague with his customary "What's happening?," and entered a audio booth to tape voice-overs for that Sunday's evidence. Minutes afterwards, his eye gave out.

Russert's sudden death traumatized the network. Subsequently Tom Brokaw interrupted afternoon programming to share the news, bouquets piled up outside the bureau and condolences poured in from Bill Clinton, Conan O'Brien, politicians and celebrities alike. Meanwhile, Russert'due south coworkers wrestled with the shock of having watched the land's most beloved political journalist dice on the job.

The state of affairs looked every bit devastating from a commercial standpoint. Russert was only 58—and NBC executives had never drawn up succession plans for Meet the Press. Nor was there an obvious heir. How would they replace an irreplaceable effigy?

Their first idea was Brokaw. The former Nightly News anchor was the only on-air effigy with the standing to follow Russert, co-ordinate to a former senior NBC executive. But Brokaw, and so 68, declined the offering considering he didn't want to exist tied down on a weekly basis.

PBS's Gwen Ifill was considered, as was NBC's Andrea Mitchell. As well in the running: Chuck Todd, the NBC News political manager whom Russert had hired presently before his death.

Like his quondam boss, Todd had sources all over Capitol Hill, compulsive work habits, and a fascination with Washington'due south machinery. "He reads The Almanac of American Politics for fun," says Reid Wilson, a Washington Mail reporter who once served as Todd's banana.

Todd as well pined for the moderator'southward chair—and lobbied aggressively for it. "He saw himself every bit the heir," says the former senior NBC executive, and "allow information technology be known that he was the i that Tim Russert wanted."

But choosing Todd had drawbacks. He was 36 then and had been on the air simply a short time. Despite all Todd's jockeying, the old executive says the network but briefly considered him—the brass believed he was simply too raw for such a high-profile position.

Gregory, the network's chief White House contributor, on the other mitt, was a solid, safe choice. Silver-haired and striking, he was an accomplished broadcaster who had a rapport with the officials he covered—George W. Bush nicknamed him "Stretch," on business relationship of his vi-foot-five frame—just who was likewise known for his confrontational exchanges with White House spokesmen.

And, no small consideration, he had long been the show's principal invitee host. "It fabricated a lot of sense," says Domenico Montanaro, who was then a political reporter for NBC News.

Meet the Press had never been Gregory's biggest ambition, according to people close to him, just because he figured Russert would never get out. He knew the loftier-stakes chore would come with added pressure: The host of a show is on the hook for ratings in a manner that even a senior correspondent never is. And Russert was an impossible human activity to follow. "He felt the prestige simply also the burden of conveying on that show and that legacy," says a close friend.

But Gregory pounced, and from the moment his promotion was appear, political elites eager to get exposure on the bear witness treated him differently. "All of a sudden he was everybody'due south best friend," says a close friend. "I joked, 'Wow, yous've gotten and so much more handsome.' "

The network, meanwhile, gave his onetime White House job to Chuck Todd.

• • •

NBC was owned past Full general Electric at that time, and the network was the oddball of the conglomerate'south industrial empire, bookkeeping for simply a tenth of its revenue. Although corporate leaders at GE knew little about dissemination, they thought of Run across the Press as a hot property, former NBC executives say, and occasionally summoned Russert and other on-air personalities to GE lath meetings to impress investors.

That was virtually the extent of their interest, though. So long every bit NBC'southward news division hit its quarterly financial targets, GE left the journalists lone. "There was no interference whatsoever," says a person close to Gregory.

Everything changed afterward GE decided to go out of the news business concern.

In 2009, it appear it would sell a controlling stake in NBC Universal to Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable behemoth. NBC was struggling at the time: The network had dropped to fourth identify in the ratings overall, behind CBS, ABC, and fifty-fifty Fox. Only Comcast CEO Brian Roberts believed that to succeed in the 21st-century media landscape, the cable company needed to practice more than than control the distribution of TV—it needed to control the making of the content, too. Comcast already endemic E!, the Manner network, and a couple of cable sports stations. NBC was to be its biggest prize yet.

Before that could happen, there was a hurdle to clear: Washington.

The Comcast/NBC deal faced intense scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators who worried that this kind of industry consolidation and vertical integration would squelch contest. Minority advocates weren't thrilled about the thought, either. They were concerned the merger might reduce diversity throughout the industry.

Meanwhile, Comcast's terrible reputation—its poor client service regularly lands information technology on lists of America's most hated companies—wasn't probable to help it make its case. The company had previously hired a Washington inquiry firm, Penn Schoen Berland, to gauge perceptions of the cable giant amidst influencers in DC and across the country. The results were ugly. That made the outlook for regulatory approving fifty-fifty trickier.

What Comcast did have was a super-continued political fixer named David L. Cohen.

Cohen, whose legendary stint as chief of staff to Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell in the 1990s was chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's book A Prayer for the Metropolis, is plugged in all over DC. "I take been here so much," President Obama joked during ane of two fundraisers at Cohen'southward Philadelphia home, "the only matter I oasis't washed in this house is have Seder dinner."

Cohen knew virtually the money and shoe leather required to win friends in Washington. Later taking over Comcast's government-affairs office in 2002, he had steadily beefed up the company's presence in the capital. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Cohen expanded its lobbying team from 31 bodies in 2002 to 103 in 2009, when the merger was announced, and increased its lobbying spending more 5-fold over the same period.

To rally political support for the merger, Comcast'southward political-action committee handed out entrada greenbacks, and Cohen worked to head off the concerns over variety. Between 2008 and 2010, Comcast's corporate foundation donated more than $3 meg to 39 minority groups that wrote letters to federal regulators in support of the NBC deal. Comcast and NBC Universal also worked out an agreement with advancement groups guaranteeing increased "minority participation in news and public diplomacy programming"—so long every bit the deal went through. And in 2009 and 2010, Comcast gave $155,000 to an organisation founded by the Reverend Al Sharpton, who ended up endorsing the merger.

The campaign paid off. In Jan 2011, Washington approved the bargain. One calendar week afterward, NBC signed Cohen'southward former boss, Ed Rendell, to an on-air contract. At MSNBC, which Comcast also owns, Sharpton landed a talk show. A spokeswoman for Comcast says the visitor is a "long-continuing supporter" of minority groups and had nothing to exercise with Sharpton's hiring. She also says Cohen played "picayune to no role" in securing Rendell'due south contract.

Shortly after the merger went through, Roberts, Comcast's CEO, went on MSNBC's Morning Joe and talked upwardly how excited he was to take over NBC. Roberts had special praise for the news division.

Information technology was, he said, the cable company's new "crown jewel."

• • •

From the start, it was clear the Comcast regime was going to take a more hands-on arroyo with NBC than GE had. The innocent, even positive, explanation for this is that Comcast knew more about making good television set than its industrial predecessor did. The more than worrying interpretation—specially to some in the news partitioning—was that the company saw the Washington bureau every bit a way to win goodwill amid the Beltway powers who might green-light its continued expansion.

Among the starting time new Comcast faces to show up at the agency afterwards the merger was none other than Cohen, who had smoothed the manner for the deal. Cohen didn't involve himself in the news agenda. Only as Comcast'southward main political operator, he became the well-nigh visible emissary of the visitor'southward soft-power initiative. (The visitor declined Washingtonian'southward request to interview him.) NBC staff watched him cozy up to the network'south top celebrities at high-profile social functions. And when information technology came time for the White Business firm Correspondents' Dinner, the network's new leadership made room at the tables for Comcast executives and the public officials they needed to influence.

At the 2012 dinner, for instance, Cohen sat with Chuck Todd, Today hosts Al Roker and Savannah Guthrie, and Republican congressman Eric Cantor, who was and so House majority leader. Subsequently, deejay Funkmaster Flex spun records and Rachel Maddow mixed cocktails at an MSNBC-sponsored party where Comcast execs mingled with lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides, and media muckety-mucks. This was a pregnant alter from the GE era, when corporate executives rarely attended the festivities.

The merger was felt inside the newsroom, too. Staffers in the Washington bureau were under pressure to book minorities on their shows and then Comcast and NBC could make practiced on their promises to civil-rights groups. Employees compiled information on the ethnic makeup of on-air guests to ensure they were in compliance, according to a person familiar with this inquiry. While more variety on television is, of form, a good thing, this corporate edict had less to do with making high-quality TV than with pleasing the institutions journalists are supposed to be out roofing.

Comcast likewise had an even more than personal mode of sucking up to Washington. Its government-diplomacy team carried around "Nosotros'll make it right" cards stamped with "priority help" codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service.

A Comcast spokeswoman says this do isn't sectional to DC; every Comcast employee receives the cards, which they can distribute to whatsoever customer with cablevision or internet problem. Nevertheless, efforts like this i accept surely helped Comcast boost its continuing within the Beltway and better its chances of winning regulatory approval for its next large conquest: merging with the 2d-largest cablevision provider in the country, Fourth dimension Warner Cable.

Appear in February 2014, the $45-billion deal could go the most consequential corporate transaction in a generation. If it goes through, information technology would put Comcast in control of 35 percent of the nation's broadband internet coverage. Combined with its robust cable penetration and its ownership of NBC content, that'south unparalleled attain into America's living rooms.

All Comcast needs, once over again, is Washington's approval. Which is why Encounter the Printing, the company's marquee Beltway belongings, is not just some other show.

David L. Cohen (correct), Comcast's lobbying chief, helped convince federal regulators to light-green-light the company's merger with NBC. Afterward, he was one of the kickoff Comcast employees to show upwardly at the network'south DC bureau, an alarming sign of corporate busybodying to some journalists. When ratings at Come across the Printing slid, some suspected über-plugged-in MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (left) of leaking internal clay while angling for Gregory'southward job. Photograph of Scarborough by Mary Kent/Alamy; Cohen by Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Earlier Comcast came along in 2011, David Gregory thrived at Meet the Press. Height White House officials returned his phone calls and took the time to explain complicated policy matters, Gregory's friends say. Leading figures in business and politics helped him arts and crafts questions. "He loved it," says a close friend.

For 3 directly years, Gregory kept Run across the Press in the number-ane slot. Every six months or so, GE'southward CEO, Jeff Immelt, would telephone call to say, "You're doing a great job," according to Gregory's friends.

Merely even while the prove remained on top, viewers were leaving the network, and its atomic number 82 over CBS and ABC gradually shrank. The deadening bleed eventually became a crisis. By late 2012, Come across the Printing had lost a quarter of its viewers and, after 16 years, surrendered its ratings crown to Confront the Nation. Gregory took the blame.

Though he was a master of the technical aspects of broadcasting—crisp, polished, with the ability to plow the garbled instructions that entered his earpiece into lucid questions or commentary—many of his talents were largely invisible to viewers. When information technology came to on-screen presence, some thought Gregory lacked the basic DNA to connect with the die-hards who made upwards his audience. Different Russert, he wasn't a classic political animal. Gregory didn't spend his days working Capitol Hill sources, he treated research like a job, and he rarely broke news—a high priority in a saturated media surround.

To some, it began to seem as if he saw Run across the Printing as only another job. They took umbrage at how much fourth dimension Gregory spent hobnobbing at his vacation habitation on Nantucket, where other NBC big shots like Russert and Chris Matthews also liked to "summer." Gregory sometimes spent the bulk of his work week on the island, according to a person familiar with his travels, and returned to DC with just a couple of days to prepare for Lord's day'south show. Other times, he was inexplicably absent-minded from the Washington bureau and couldn't exist located. A person close to him disputes this, arguing that Gregory, who had worked the White Business firm beat for eight years, loved politics. "His life was in Washington," the source says. "He was non an absentee executive."

Gregory could be prickly: cavalier to lower-level staff and arrogant to others, traits that didn't make him terribly pop at the bureau. And he wasn't a practiced ambassador for Meet the Press on NBC's other platforms. While Russert had regularly provided political analysis on Today and Nightly News, Gregory appeared on those shows less frequently. He had long been seen as a superlative contender to supervene upon Matt Lauer every bit host of Today, and some saw network rivalries every bit the problem. "Brian Williams and Matt Lauer didn't put [Gregory] on their shows because they were threatened by him and didn't like him," says a erstwhile senior NBC executive. Another source familiar with the situation contends that NBC shows didn't book Gregory because he was rarely effectually. A person close to Gregory disputes this, saying he was "always effectually."

By early 2013, NBC—which had now been under Comcast'southward command for two years—began a concerted try to revive Encounter the Press. The network hired a New York branding house, Elastic Strategy, to organize a serial of focus groups to assist diagnose the show's problems, according to people familiar with the inquiry. There was one key finding: Viewers liked Gregory well plenty; they just didn't feel they really knew him.

NBC executives zeroed in on this disconnect. Even Gregory'south critics admit that—when he'southward off photographic camera—he brims with charm and charisma; his dead-on impersonation of Tom Brokaw puts colleagues in stitches. All the same this vibrant personality somehow disappeared when the camera turned on.

The network decided it needed to learn more than about Gregory to aid him establish a stronger connection with his audience. So it had the branding consultants interview his married woman, friends, and colleagues, according to people familiar with the research. Producers later on encouraged Gregory to mention his family and his Jewish faith on the air to assist viewers go to know him better.

Zip worked. In Baronial 2013, Run across the Press's ratings plummeted to 21-year lows. That was just one of several big issues at the network.

Under British Goggle box executive Deborah Turness (far right), who was hired to turn around a struggling NBC News, Meet the Press tried booking celebrities. Photograph of Turness by Heidi Gutman/NBC.

In May 2014, rapper will.i.am (2nd from correct) appeared with the usual political pundits. Photograph past NBC/Getty Images.

Meet the Press Timeline

A Brusque History of the Longest-Running Show on Television

November 6, 1947

The first "See the Printing" airs on NBC, with co-creator and radio producer Martha Rountree every bit host. The xxx-minute format includes one guest and a console of questioners.

November one, 1953

Rountree steps downwards, and announcer Ned Brooks (far right)becomes host.

November seven, 1954

"Meet the Press" gets a rival when CBS debuts its Lord's day show, "Face the Nation."

January 3, 1960

Senator John F. Kennedy appears a solar day subsequently announcing his run for President.

Jan 1, 1966

Lawrence E. Spivak, original co-creator of the show with Rountree, becomes host following Brooks's retirement.

November nine, 1975

Gerald Ford is a guest—a first for a sitting President. After the broadcast, Spivak departs and Bill Monroe, a former NBC Washington agency master, takes over.

November 15, 1981

"Meet the Printing" gets even more competition on Sundays when ABC launches "This Week With David Brinkley."

September xvi, 1984

One-time CBS reporters Roger Mudd and Marvin Kalb get moderators, a movement meant to milk shake things upward at present that ABC'due south "This Week" has become a serious rival.

May 10, 1987

NBC chief White House contributor Chris Wallace becomes host merely stays but through the finish of 1988.

January 29, 1989

Another change: Garrick Utley, NBC'due south "Lord's day Today" ballast, takes over for the side by side iii years.

December 8, 1991

Tim Russert becomes the show's ninth host. The next year, it expands to an hour. By 1997, Russert brings up ratings by a total of forty percentage.

December 11, 2001

Viewers have risen to an average iv.1 meg a week. NBC signs Russert to a 12-year contract, believed to be the longest in Television set history.

September 8, 2002

Russert interviews Vice President Dick Cheney nigh declared weapons of mass destruction in Iraq the aforementioned solar day that administration-planted stories about WMD appear in the New York Times. Later, Russert is criticized for going too easy on Cheney and giving him a platform to pulsate up support for the state of war.

November 28, 2004

Three weeks after an election in which moral values factored heavily into President George Westward. Bush'south reelection, Russert does a segment on morality and religion with reverends Jerry Falwell, Richard Land, Al Sharpton, and Jim Wallis. Afterward, Gloria Steinem and leaders of Planned Parenthood and other groups criticize the show for bias, given the absence of a female person and the pro-life position of three of the guests.

June xiii, 2008

Russert, the prove's longest-serving moderator, dies of a centre assail at NBC'due south Washington bureau. Tom Brokaw begins filling in while NBC scrambles to replace Russert.

December seven, 2008

David Gregory becomes the new moderator.

May six, 2012

Vice President Joe Biden appears and voices back up for aforementioned-sexual practice marriage.

Dec 23, 2012

After the Newtown massacre, Gregory interviews National Rifle Clan head Wayne LaPierre and holds upwards a thirty-round mag— illegal in DC. Prosecutors decline to accuse Gregory.

August 14, 2014

"Run into the Press" has hitting record lows and conceded its top slot in the ratings to "Face up the Nation." Gregory exits, and NBC announces Chuck Todd as the side by side host.

September 7, 2014

Todd's debut—an interview with President Obama—has ii.98 million viewers, vaulting "Run across the Printing" to the top of the ratings for the showtime time in many months. The victory will be short-lived.

NBC'due south iii most prestigious news franchises—Nightly News, Today, and Meet the Press—underpinned its credibility and its acquirement for decades. But now the land'south virtually venerable broadcast-news network was falling apart.

ABC'south Practiced Morning America had toppled Today in the war for morning viewers, and its evening newscast was cut into NBC's atomic number 82 among the fundamental 25-to-54-year-old audience. Meet the Press was faring the worst of all—information technology was now in tertiary place on Sundays.

To turn things around, NBC hired an executive named Deborah Turness equally its new president, making her the commencement-ever woman to run a network news division in America. Turness had been the editor of the news unit at the British network ITV, but she wasn't your average boob tube suit. The Englishwoman "renowned for ripping upward the rule book," according to the Guardian, had been married to a erstwhile roadie for the Disharmonism and once competed in the "Peking to Paris" off-road car race. She had swagger.

As presently every bit she arrived, Turness was repeatedly asked if she was going to can Gregory.

According to executives, she did have a mandate to "transform" the whole news sectionalisation. Every bit she told the New York Times, "NBC News hadn't kept up with the times in all sorts of means, for perchance 15 years." It had, she said, "gone to sleep."

But Run across the Press wasn't her commencement priority, and as well, Turness was fond of Gregory. She'd met him three months earlier at a secret get-together, when, wary of leaks during the hiring process, NBC had furtively checked her into a hotel and had on-air talent and executives come to her room for 1-on-i meetings. Turness plant Gregory funny and likable. Moreover, the two shared a like enthusiasm to milk shake upwardly the testify's format. And then she decided to back him while she offset went well-nigh fixing Today, the network'due south nigh lucrative belongings.

Turness finally turned her attention to Meet the Press in January of 2014. Correct away, information technology was articulate that she was tired of the status quo. Similar a lot of people, Turness considered gimmicky Sunday shows a snooze. Every calendar week, they put the same talking heads on air to rehash the same stories that cable Telly and the cyberspace had been chewing on all week. Turness didn't encounter much value in that, and she told colleagues she idea NBC had treated See the Press similar a Fabergé egg—as well precious to touch.

After weeks of focus groups and ratings analysis, Turness and the Run into the Press team identified three areas for improvement, according to NBC executives. Starting time, the show needed to book college-profile newsmakers instead of trotting out done-up ex-officials and overexposed senators. 2nd, Gregory's interviews had to produce something buzzy—a comment, an commutation—that would propel the side by side day'due south news bike. Turness often joked with Gregory near how British journalists treated their politicians with less reverence than the American media did, and she wanted Gregory to get more aggressive, according to sources familiar with these conversations.

While these ideas weren't radical, the 3rd one sparked controversy.

Turness told colleagues that the show should retain its intellectual aptitude but there was no reason for it to be so stuffy. Watching Come across the Press felt like work, and she told the staff she wanted a program that was fun and surprising. A guilty pleasure. Something that might even make you express mirth. The country's nearly esteemed political talk show, she concluded, needed to loosen upward.

Turness had all kinds of ideas for how to pull this off. She considered bringing in a studio audience, as y'all'd run across on Ellen or Saturday Night Live. She thought about moving the bear witness to New York City, where the number-ii-rated This Week sometimes filmed. She suggested that Gregory stack newspapers on his desk to give the set an intimate, coffeehouse experience. She insisted on quickening the show's pace with shorter interviews and more pretaped segments to mix things up.

And she pressed the staff to book more politically active celebrities that not-white, non-male, non-senior citizens—the people who aren't watching Meet the Printing—might exist drawn in by.

Gregory chafed at these changes, people shut to him say, fearing they were too radical and would cheapen the brand. Just he complied. On one show, rapper will.i.am joined old White House communications director Anita Dunn, Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, columnist Kathleen Parker, and Chuck Todd for the roundtable segment. Instead of loose, equally Turness wanted, the result was utterly strong.

"I've just got to become you to tweet that you were going to be on in the morning, which you did," Gregory said to will.i.am.

"I hooked it up," the rap star replied.

"Aye, you hooked it upwardly," Gregory said.

At one point, Turness suggested that Gregory have a live band close out the show to commemorate the death of Nelson Mandela. Gregory was appalled, people close to him say. Although he recognized the demand to augment the plan'southward appeal to a younger, more diverse audition, he worried that Turness'south approach was about to plough Meet the Printing into a political gong evidence.

• • •

The new boss wasn't Gregory'south only problem. All of a sudden, stories virtually the palace intrigue at Meet the Press began actualization with suspicious frequency. By March 2014, only two months into Turness'due south turnaround effort, rumors that Gregory was on the chopping block had gained so much traction that he asked NBC to respond and quell them.

"I cannot be more declarative about David—[he] is our guy, is going to be our guy, and we are really happy with him," Turness's top lieutenant told the Huffington Post.

But after that, the drums only beat louder. On April 20, the Washington Post reported that the Meet the Press research conducted dorsum in 2013 to beefiness upwardly Gregory'southward personal narrative had included "commissioning a psychological consultant to interview [Gregory's] friends and even his wife."

NBC denied that allegation, insisting that the person in question had been a branding—not psychological—consultant. But the story exploded on the internet, turning Gregory into a laughingstock and precipitating a fresh circular of speculation about his job security.

Again, Gregory demanded that NBC executives make a show of support, and Turness obliged. In a memo quickly leaked to media writers, she called the press reports "vindictive, personal and above all—untrue" and reiterated her "support for the show and for David, now and into the futurity, as we work together to evolve the format."

Gregory was becoming a spectacle, and it was clear to him, friends say, that this was no accident—someone was planting these stories in the press to discredit him. The question was who.

Gregory had no shortage of rivals at NBC, and speculation centered on the two who were represented by powerful and media-savvy agents: Joe Scarborough, a customer of Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood superagent and the inspiration for Ari Gold on HBO's Entourage, and Todd, a client of Jay Sures at United Talent Bureau.

Scarborough, the Republican congressman turned MSNBC talking head and host of Morning Joe, had been after Gregory's job for years, according to erstwhile NBC employees. And inside MSNBC's New York offices, Scarborough is known every bit a prima donna who doesn't respond well to "no."

"He constantly clashes with [MSNBC president] Phil Griffin," says a quondam NBC employee. "There are times when he would just non fifty-fifty talk to [Griffin]."

When Gregory was in the hot seat, some thought Scarborough reached for the knives. And the staff wouldn't have welcomed him in the moderator'due south chair. In 2012, NBC executives had given Scarborough a shot at guest-hosting See the Printing in Gregory's absence, according to sources. But the network's news partitioning protested. Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum was booked for that week'due south show, and letting Scarborough interview a swain conservative would undercut the franchise's nonpartisan bona fides. Every bit a compromise, Savannah Guthrie moderated and Scarborough led the roundtable.

In 2013, the New York Mail had reported that Scarborough was in discussions with NBC about taking over the Sunday edition of Today, which airs before Meet the Press in some markets. The move would have put Scarborough and Gregory in direct contest for guests and provided the MSNBC host with a springboard to take over Gregory's testify. NBC declined to have Scarborough comment; in a July tweet, he denied having angled for the task.

Todd'southward Come across the Press ambitions fabricated for tension. "It was obvious that Chuck knew a lot more about politics than David did, and and then that was uncomfortable," says a person familiar with their relationship. "And then on Chuck'south stop, David had the job he wanted, so that's uncomfortable."

Earlier this year, Sures, Todd's agent, approached the NBC contumely in New York, according to a former senior NBC executive, and demanded that Todd exist handed Gregory'southward job.

"They were very aggressive with the new NBC News leadership," the former executive says, "and told them that if Chuck didn't get Meet the Printing soon, he was going to exit." Sures denies this, and NBC declined to make Todd bachelor.

• • •

Nether the harsh glare of the printing, Gregory'southward human relationship with Turness crumbled. She told colleagues that the show's guest lineup withal lacked appetite and creativity, and she took more control of the program. Sometimes on Fridays, she would contact the staff to say that the guests booked for Sunday weren't suitable, forcing Gregory'due south squad to scramble to observe replacements, according to people close to him.

Some were convinced Gregory was still distracted. In the bound, when NBC remodeled the Encounter the Press offices, Gregory went on a shopping spree, co-ordinate to a person familiar with the transaction. Just as the program was in chaos and his task was on the line, he redecorated with a new glass desk, an Hermès leather box, and other extravagant items totaling thousands of dollars, according to the source. A person close to Gregory denies he bought an Hermès box, "as good of a tale equally that might be." The source also says that Gregory worked his contacts hard, especially when the ratings were struggling, and noted that he personally booked exclusive interviews with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in the first one-half of 2014.

By late July, NBC had made up its mind, according to people familiar with these discussions. The testify's ratings remained awful, and all the negative press was pain the brand. Gregory had to become.

But NBC was and then worried about more leaks that executives kept the decision a secret from everyone—including Gregory—while they began gaming out a replacement.

Turness looked at candidates inside and outside the network and considered choices both conventional and unconventional. She even met with Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Key's wildly successful Daily Show, who could have brought with him legions of young viewers and embodied the transformation Turness was hired to engineer. "I'm sure role of them was thinking, 'Why don't we just make it a variety show?' " Stewart told Rolling Stone.

Turness's secret didn't last long. Page 6 at the New York Post soon declared: "David Gregory's time on Come across the Printing is almost up."

This fourth dimension, when Gregory asked NBC to stick up for him, he didn't get the response he expected. Instead, the network told his agent the bad news: He was out. Now it merely needed to figure out how much the separation was going to cost.

After several days of negotiations, Gregory and NBC still couldn't hold on their final terms. That's when Gregory found himself driving through the New Hampshire mountains, suffering ane terminal embarrassment as host of Meet the Press.

As news of his ouster blasted effectually the cyberspace, Gregory's phone lit up. Matt Lauer, Secretarial assistant of Country John Kerry, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon chosen to say how sorry they were, co-ordinate to a source close to Gregory. And that's not all. The source says the corporation'due south almost senior executives—including NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts—called, one past one, to express their regret for how his departure was handled.

"I had a nifty run hosting Meet the Press," Gregory said in an eastward-mail to Washingtonian. His $four-million severance agreement prevents him from discussing the separate. "I loved doing it and I am proud of the work we did."

Only one year subsequently arriving at NBC with plans to overhaul the news sectionalisation, Turness tossed her ambitions aside and made the safest option possible. In the cease, she installed Chuck Todd, the ultimate incarnation of Washington's talking-head establishment.

On Sun, September 7, a slimmed-down and newly tanned Todd interviewed President Obama for his first evidence as moderator. The programme attracted its largest audition in six months, earning NBC a difficult-fought ratings win. The following week, Meet the Press cruel back to third identify. It hasn't returned to the top since.

Senior writer Luke Mullins can be reached at lmullins@washingtonian.com

This article appears in the January 2015 issue of Washingtonian.

Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city's levers of power. He has written nigh the Koch Brothers' attempt to accept over The Cato Institute, David Gregory'southward ouster as moderator of NBC'southward Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington's Metro arrangement, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.

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Source: https://www.washingtonian.com/2014/12/21/how-david-gregory-lost-his-job/

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