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'Meet the Press' transcript for June 15, 2008
A panel of Tim Russert’s friends and colleagues remember the newsman
Broadcast videos, highlights |
 Netcast June 15: We will devote the full hour to highlights of Tim's remarkable life and career on "Meet the Press" with a handful of people who were among those who knew and loved him best. Tom Brokaw will lead the special tribute to his friend and colleague. |
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MR. TOM BROKAW: "Our issues this Sunday." Tim Russert started every edition of MEET THE PRESS with those four words, and those were the words that he was preparing to record when he collapsed and died on Friday at these NBC studios in Washington. Now, his moderator's chair is empty, his voice has been stilled and our issue this sad Sunday morning is remembering and honoring our colleague and our friend with some of the men and women who worked with him and appeared here on MEET THE PRESS, who knew him best and loved him most.
I'm Tom Brokaw. There are so many stories that we could tell about Tim, so many moments that shaped and defined him and our nation. But, in this hour that Tim occupied so proudly and did so well, we will focus on the remarkable things that he did right here on MEET THE PRESS, a program that he called a "national treasure," of which he said he was only the temporary custodian. For 17 years, of course, he was so much more than all of that. His great friend, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, is with us this morning.
And it seems to me, Doris, that in the future, historians will have a rich archive in the MEET THE PRESS recordings of the people who have passed through these studios--who they were, how they evolved and what they became.
MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: No question about that. I mean, think about the 19th century. We had diaries, we had letters. That's what allows historians to re-create those people who lived then. In this broadcast world, what these recordings will show people years from now is not just the questions he asked, not even just the answers he got, but which people were able to acknowledge errors, which people ruffled under his questions, which ones could share a laugh. You'll get the temperament of these people. They're going to come alive. You know, he loved that "Meet the Press Minute" at the end, where the history could come back. And I keep imagining that maybe four or five election cycles from now, when we're in our 80s, we'll be dragged back to a bunch of young journalists and, and they will, they will say to us, "You knew Tim Russert? You were there with him?" And we'll be able to know that we knew this man with this boyish enthusiasm. That's what the records won't show, but we'll know that.
MR. BROKAW: What we should hope when we get into our 80s, however, is that they will not bring back some of the judgments that we made here on MEET THE PRESS of that time.
MS. KEARNS GOODWIN: Right. Sanitize that.
MR. BROKAW: Tim has a very large wooden sign in his office, and it's going to be our mantra for this morning. It says, "Thou shall not whine." And if I could add, I think, anything to that, thou shall not weep or cry this morning. This is a celebration, a time to remember. And if there was a signature for MEET THE PRESS under the guidance of Tim Russert, the questions were tough but always fair. Let's take a look at some of those questions, tough and fair, over the years here on MEET THE PRESS, and then talk about that.
(Videotape, November 10, 1991)
MR. TIM RUSSERT: If I told you it was 25 percent of your state lived below the poverty line, would you believe me?
Mr. DAVID DUKE: I could believe you, yes, sir.
MR. RUSSERT: Are these the kinds of things that governors should know, who the largest employers are, how many people live below the poverty line?
(End videotape)
(Videotape, May 3, 1992)
MR. ROSS PEROT: Just say...
MR. RUSSERT: You said that part of your $40 billion deficit reduction plan...
MR. PEROT: Now, what I have also told your program today...
MR. RUSSERT: ...is $180 billion.
Mr. PEROT: Yes. May I finish?
MR. RUSSERT: May I finish? It's a simple question.
MR. PEROT: Well, you've already finished.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, I, I...
MR. PEROT: Go, finish again.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's, let's--please, please.
MR. PEROT: It's your, it's your program, you can do anything you want to with it.
(End videotape)
(Videotape, November 7, 1993)
MR. RUSSERT: Will you allow North Korea to build a nuclear bomb?
FMR. PRES. BILL CLINTON: North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb. We have to be very firm about it.
(End videotape)
(Videotape, October 13, 1996)
MR. RUSSERT: Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater--what's wrong with those as legitimate issues?
FMR. VICE PRES. AL GORE: Look at all this Whitewater stuff. What's come out of it? Absolutely nothing.
(End videotape)
(Videotape April 13, 1997)
MR. RUSSERT: Would you be willing to retract or apologize for some of the things you said?
Mr. LOUIS FARRAKHAN: If I can defend every word that I speak and every word that I speak is truth, then I have nothing to apologize for.
(End videotape)
(Videotape, February 8, 2004)
MR. RUSSERT: In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity?
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: I think it's a--that's an interesting question. Please elaborate on that a little bit. A war of choice or a war of necessity? It's a war of necessity.
(End videotape)
(Videotape, September 4, 2005)
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, you say pre-staged. People were sent to the convention center. There was no water, no food, no beds, no authorities there. There as no planning.
SEC'Y MICHAEL CHERTOFF: We'll have time to go back and do an after-action report. But the time right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are.
MR. RUSSERT: Many Americans believe now is the time for accountability.
(End videotape)
(Videotape, May 27, 2007)
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: Look, I was asked--I shouldn't have said that, so you're going to--I've been in public life 25 years. You're going to find a lot of these, and it seems you've found them all here.
MR. RUSSERT: No, I'm just trying to set the record, I'm trying to give you a chance to respond, which is fair.
GOV. RICHARDSON: All right. OK.
(End videotape)
(Videotape, April 2, 2006)
MR. RUSSERT: Senator John McCain, thanks for joining us and sharing your views.
SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I haven't had so much fun since my last interrogation.
(End videotape)
BROKAW: And joining us this morning, among others, from Sun Valley, Idaho, Tim's very dear friend, Maria Shriver, our former colleague.
And, Maria, I remember so well when you and Tim went to Cuba and you were interviewing Fidel Castro. It was kind of comforting, my guess is, to have Tim at your side on that occasion.
MS. MARIA SHRIVER: Well, I think it's so poignant that we're talking about Tim on Father's Day, because he was a father to so many of us, the whole bureau there and all the young journalists. And when I went to Cuba he was--he told me ahead of time, "You need me in Cuba when you're going to interview Fidel Castro." I said, "No, Tim, you don't have to come. I, I don't really need you. I can handle this myself." He said, "No, you need me. I need to produce for you, I need to cheer you up, I need to be there for you." He actually wanted to just meet Castro, and he wanted to go along for the ride. But he, he prepared probably better than I did for the interview, and I remember how excited he was to be there, the intrigue, getting up in the middle of the night, going over to meet Castro and making sure that I knew everything I needed to ask him. And I think he, he was that kind of person, as we've talked about, and I think as everybody's talked about--thorough, excited, a lover of history, as Doris said. So he wanted to meet Castro, he wanted to understand the Cuban missile crisis, he wanted to get answers. And he probably knew as much about it as Castro himself. But he was great fun, he was a great companion. And, really, he saw himself as a mentor to me and, I think, to so many others, and I think that's why he was so beloved in our organization and out.
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