Meet The Press Television Program

Tom Brokaw opened Sunday's somber edition of "Meet the Press" by invoking a large wooden sign Tim Russert displayed in his office. "It's going to be our mantra for this morning," Brokaw said. "It says, 'Thou shall not whine.' And if I can add, I think, anything to that, 'Thou shall not weep or cry this morning.' This is a celebration, a time to remember."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, usually a darling of the national media, found himself being told by the host of NBC's "Meet the Press" that if he ran a private company the way he has run the state, he might have been fired by now. Tom Brokaw, who will be moderating the program through the presidential election, put a series of confrontational questions to the governor in an interview taped in California and aired this morning.

NBC executives are closing in on a decision about who will take over "Meet the Press," its venerable Sunday morning political talk show, with the announcement coming possibly on Dec. 7. According to network sources, that may be Tom Brokaw's last day on the air as interim moderator of the program, a post he assumed after the sudden death of longtime host Tim Russert in June.

Speculation about who will be the next moderator of "Meet the Press" ratcheted up another level Monday as the Huffington Post reported that the job was going to NBC chief White House correspondent David Gregory, while the network maintained that no announcement was imminent. "We have nothing to announce," NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust said.

"Meet the Press," the predominant political forum on television, entered a new era Sunday as NBC announced that David Gregory will take the helm of the program, six months after the death of longtime moderator Tim Russert. The selection of Gregory, NBC's chief White House correspondent, was no surprise, having leaked out days ago after weeks of speculation. Interim host Tom Brokaw confirmed the news at the end of Sunday's show, introducing Gregory as a "great friend and cherished colleague."

Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday defended his lightning-rod role as a leading advocate for invading Iraq, for a warrantless surveillance program and for harsh treatment of suspected terrorists. "Part of my job is to think about the unthinkable, to focus upon what in fact the terrorists may have in store for us," Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" when asked about his "dark side." Cheney now recognizes, he said, that the insurgency in Iraq was not "in its last throes," as he said in May 2005.

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams will host "Meet the Press" this Sunday as the network ponders how to replace moderator Tim Russert on a permanent basis. After nearly a week of mourning the loss of Russert, who died of a heart attack June 13 in NBC's Washington bureau, the network news division began to focus on the difficult task of identifying his successor. Along with hosting "Meet the Press," the 58-year-old served as NBC's Washington bureau chief and to-go political analyst.

NBC announced Sunday that Tom Brokaw, the former anchor of "NBC Nightly News," will host "Meet the Press" in Tim Russert's place through the November elections. Russert died June 13. In addition to the public mourning, his death created an important vacancy within NBC's news division. For the last week, the leading candidates to replace him appeared to be NBC News Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory, PBS' Gwen Ifill, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and NBC Political Director Chuck Todd.

Tim Russert occasionally watched "Meet the Press" while growing up in Buffalo, but he never thought about himself on the screen. He wanted to be a baseball player. This Sunday, however, marks 12 years and five weeks that he's been the political talk show's moderator, beating the NBC show's longevity record by one week. Ned Brooks, who left in 1965, had the previous record.

Amid Democratic attacks and a recent drop in his approval ratings, President Bush has decided to take the unusual step of giving an hourlong interview to a Sunday morning television talk show -- NBC's "Meet the Press." "The president wanted to directly discuss with the American people his thinking about the war on terror" and other subjects, said deputy White House press secretary Trent Duffy.