NBC anchor Brian Williams will be the first to fill in for Tim Russert as the host for “Meet the Press” this Sunday, the network said today.
Russert died suddenly last week of cardiac arrest. After Williams, several different NBC news personalities are expected to rotate as the host of the Sunday morning interview show until a permanent replacement is named – sometime later this year or early next.
The guest will be will be Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Biden, who had originally been booked to appear on last week’s show.
They were cancelled last Sunday when the show was turned into a tribute to Russert, whose 17 years on the show was the longest of any host in the program’s history.
A number of other fill-ins have been mentioned, including reporters Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory and cable news achors Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews.
NBC said it had not yet set a schedule for hosts – but it is believed that, in one sense, the temporary hosts will be auditioning for the job on a permanent basis.