His maternal great-grandfather, Joseph Morris Bernstein, was born in Bessarabia. He also hosts M T Daily on MSNBC and is the Political Director for NBC News. Before taking the helm of Meet the Press, Todd was Chief White House correspondent for NBC as well as host of The Daily Rundown on MSNBC. He also serves as NBC News' on-air political analyst for NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and Today. Tim Russert brought Todd to NBC from The Hotline in March 2007. He became the NBC News political director at that time. In this role, Todd often provided on-air political analysis on political discussion shows, including Morning Joe, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, and The Rachel Maddow Show and blogged for MSNBC.com at "First Read". He also did a weekly Question and Answer ("Q&A") session with users at Newsvine. Todd is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House. Published in 2014, the Chicago Tribune described the book as "richly sourced and deeply informed", while Publishers Weekly called it "an even-handed, concise, and thorough account". Todd is also co- author, with Sheldon Gawiser, of How Barack Obama Won: AState-by-State Guide to theHistoric 2008 Presidential Election, published in 2009.