At 7am in the show’s Manhattan studio, Guthrie launched into the headlines – the US war on Iran, the Artemis II astronauts’ traveling to the far side of the moon – before briefly acknowledging her absence.

“We are so glad you started your week with us, and it is good be home,” Guthrie said.

“Yes, it is good to have you back at home,” her co-anchor Craig Melvin replied, patting Guthrie’s hand.

“Well, here we go, ready or not, let’s do the news,” Guthrie said.

She was last at the anchor’s desk in January, shortly before her mother, Nancy Guthrie, was taken from her home near Tucson. An armed man wearing a ski mask was recorded tampering with her doorbell camera before the disappearance.

Savannah Guthrie and her siblings later recorded emotional pleas for their mother’s return, offering a US$1 million reward, but she has yet to be found.

In a video she recorded in February, Guthrie said her family was “blowing on the embers of hope” that Nancy Guthrie was still alive, but acknowledged that “she may already be gone”.