SPECIAL COVERAGE ON THE PASSING OF TIM RUSSERT

TOM BROKAW, NBC NEWS:  I'm Tom Brokaw, NBC News. 

    And it's my sad duty to report this afternoon that my friend and college, Tim Russert, the moderator of "MEET THE PRESS" and NBC's Washington Bureau Chief, collapsed and died early this afternoon while at work in the NBC news bureau in Washington.

    Tim had just returned from a family trip to Italy with his wife, Marine Orth (ph), the writer, and his son, Luke.  They were celebrating Luke's graduation from Boston College just this spring. 

    Tim, of course, has been the host of "MEET THE PRESS" longer than any other person in that long-running television broadcast.  He has been a very familiar face on this network and throughout the world of political journalism as one of the premier political analysts and journalists of his time. 

    Tim, 58-years-old, grew up in Buffalo and he wrote a No. 1 best selling "New York Times" book called, "Big Russ and Me," about his childhood and especially about his relationship with his father, big Russ.  That was followed by another No. 1 "New York Times" best seller called, "The Wisdom of our Fathers."  That book was inspired by the many letters that he received from other children talking about their relationship with their fathers. 

    This was one of the most important years in Tim's life for so many reasons.  He loved this political campaign. He worked to the point of exhaustion so many weeks, not just on "MEET THE PRESS," but on MSNBC, and with our colleague, Brian Williams, of course, during the debates and on "Special Coverage" on NBC Nightly News. 

    Tim was a true child of Buffalo and the blue collar roots in which he was raised.  For all of his success, he was always in touch with the ethos of that community.  Just last week, he was back in Buffalo moving his father from his home to another facility.  His father now in his late 80s.  Big Russ, it goes without saying, our heart goes out to him and all members of Tim's family. 

    Tim loved his family, his faith, his country, politics.  He loved the Buffalo Bills, the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals. 

He of course had season tickets to that team when they moved to Washington.  We will have additional details throughout the evening here on NBC News and MSNBC, of course. 

    Brian Williams will have continuing coverage. 

    But to repeat, our beloved colleague, one of the premier journalists of our time, Tim Russert, died this afternoon after collapsing at work at the NBC News bureau in Washington, D.C.  And I think I can invoke personal privilege to say that this news division will not be the same without his strong, clear voice.  He will be missed as he was loved, greatly. 

    I'm Tom Brokaw, NBC News in New York. 

    BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR:  As we welcome our family of viewers on MSNBC, first off, to explain where we are.  We are at Bogram

(ph) Airfield in Afghanistan.  And of course, the NBC News family going through the very painful knowledge, the painful first word of the loss of our friend and colleague, Tim Russert. 

    Tim was 58-years-old.  We first learned word this afternoon that something was wrong.  Tim collapsed in the Washington bureau, where he was bureau chief, also senior vice president of NBC News and as needs no mention, a long-time moderator of "MEET THE PRESS," the hugely successful and longest running Sunday morning public affairs show in American television. 

    Tim, as Tom Brokaw first mentioned, was a lot of things.  First, and foremost, of course, a beloved son of Buffalo, New York.  Went back frequently.  It is the home of his surviving father, big Russ, "Big Russ and Me" the title of Tim's first of two best-selling books. 

    Again, at the age of 58, an unfathomable loss. 

    Tim knew Washington as well as anyone alive, having worked for Daniel Patrick Moynahan and Andrew Cuomo, among others.  He was an attorney, a member of the bar in New York and a member of the bar in Washington, D.C.

    Apologies are required.  We are in Afghanistan in preparation for tonight's broadcast of NBC Nightly News from Bogram (ph) Airfield.  And when there is a launch of one jet here, it is usually immediately followed by the launch of a second. 

    We, of course, have been here for much of this week reporting the U.S. military effort here in Afghanistan.  We are going to require a lot of help from family members for this coverage as we go on into the evening.  All of us are suffering this same great loss.  For a lot of us, it's the first time we have spoken. 

    And with that, as we have another launch here -- to my colleague, Andrea Mitchell on the NBC News Washington bureau, a very sad place this afternoon -- Andrea. 

    ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS:  Well, the shock waves cannot be fully expressed. 

    Tim was our friend, our leader, our cheerleader, our teacher, my mentor.  Tim came to this bureau in 1988, 20 years ago, as the bureau chief.  Even before that, he, of course, was a vice president of NBC News and was in charge of the today program and a great contributor to shaping political coverage.  He was a guide to all things political. 

    I have always felt that Tim's involvement in "MEET THE PRESS" and, I'll never forget, his first time as an on-camera person, not just an executive on "MEET THE PRESS," But put on camera and asking questions and then becoming the host of "MEET THE PRESS" 17 years ago.  I have always felt that it was his background as someone who had gone through Jesuit schools, who had had the training from the sisters whom he so fondly talked of, who had taught him to ask questions, to ask the questions that average people would want to know, and also ask the questions that would stump the political figures, because it wasn't a gotcha moment.  It was that Tim had a fabulous memory and would always ask what people needed to know about their political leaders. 

    Tim's leadership in this bureau, Brian, you know it better than anyone, having taught us -- here is Tim on "MEET THE PRESS" just very recently. 

    Tim was the person who was really the historian of all things political here.  He also, as a partner on debate questions, was the host and moderator of many debates, singly and together with you, Brian Williams.  He had huge impact on so many political campaigns.  The political campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2000, running for office, it was the Buffalo debate hosted, by hometown boy Tim Russert, that put Rick Lazio (ph) on the spot and memorably  had Hillary Clinton proving herself in that debate and then going on to victory as the senator from New York. 

    Brian, there are so many things that we can say about Tim Russert today.  But the other thing that we need to say is Tim Russert as a teacher and as a friend. 

    Tim has been a friend, a father figure to many, an older brother to some, who has carried this bureau through 9/11, through the attacks on the Pentagon, through all of the tragedies and the triumphs of these years here in Washington.  It is Tim who has taught all of us how to be journalists and better journalists. 

    And as someone who has participated with him on the "Today" program as a friend and fellow political analyst in the early years when we were partners with Al Hunt (ph), his closest and dearest friend, Al Hunt of Bloomberg news, and the extended family.  When I think of all of us here as journalists, and as people, we are all so much the better for being friends and students of Tim Russert.  The preeminent journalist of our time in any measure who knew how to make the adjustment as we went into cable and on the Internet and expanded all of our horizons in an instantaneous way. 

    Brian, you in Bogram know better than anyone what we have learned from Tim Russert. 

    WILLIAMS:  Well, Andrea, you put it so well and raised such an important point.  No. 1, his reach through the industry, his reach through politics and journalism.  And sadly for all the wrong reasons, over the next few days, we are about to find out just how far and deep that reach was.  But also, his approach, which was so carefully honed and trained through years of education.  His Jesuit education absolutely jermaine to any discussion about Tim, Irish Catholic upbringing in, as he often put it, a lunch box neighborhood, a father who held down two jobs for a large portion of his adult life, worked for the city.  It helped to form who Tim Russert was. 

    And then his legal training, because his mind was so neatly divided like a legal pad.  His arguments and his questioning were just like a courtroom lawyer.  

People used to be fond to point out the jobs Tim had held in politics as if to find a crack, a crevice, anywhere where they could pin Tim Russert down. The problem with that was, his lawyerly approach to the broadcast, to anything political he ever touched, including moderating countless debates and it's tough to watch the videotape of the two of us together during this so far, endless political season. Because there was no running room there for that argument.

He was always about fairness, about the truly best intent of what is often called "capital J Journalism." That was our friend, Tim Russert. I am looking at this moment now airing on videotape as Tim was accepting the accolades of the crowd. We worked out a pretty good warm-up act as we came out in that string of debates during the Democratic primary season.

After I arrived at the network at the invitation of Tom Brokaw, Tim’s was the first face I saw. He started, for those people just joining us, at NBC News in 1984. Our friend was 58 years old, the Washington bureau chief, moderator of MEET THE PRESS. How many times have we all used that expression?

And remaining with us and a voice we have to have chime in here as part of the coverage, again, I'm halfway across the world at Baghram Airfield in Afghanistan, a man that knew Tim as well as anybody, Tom Brokaw. Tom?

TOM BROKAW, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Thank you, Brian. I remember when he arrived here. He was recommended by his friend Lynn Garmit (ph), one of our news division presidents, Larry Grossman. And Tim came almost directly from Capitol Hill. When I heard he was a prospect, I made a point of getting to know him through our mutual friend Al Hunt. Went down to Washington and heard those drop-dead invitations he would do of his friend and mentor, Daniel Patrick Moynahan. And I thought, I have been in this business quite a while. I have never seen anybody brighter or more perceptive than this guy from Buffalo, New York.

And Tim, I always felt, became a great journalist because he crossed from one line into another and he knew how the system worked on the other side. He knew what the thinking was.

And I think he elevated not just everyone in this bureau but I think he elevated broadcast political coverage because of the standards that he had in terms of getting at what was essential in any campaign or any position. He knew how to dive into a bill and find where the earmarks were, for example or how it had been loaded up or compromised for that matter in an effort to get it through.

He was a diligent researcher. He had a great staff around him, obviously. They were like family to him. They would pull together mounds of material and Tim would begin to bury himself in that on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. He eschewed most of the Washington social scene because he wanted to be doing what he loved to do best, be with his family and be with MEET THE PRESS and his colleagues that were covering politics. And he was doing that to the very end.

He came back from Italy, a little bit early to do MEET THE PRESS on Sunday. Maureen and Luke remained behind. They are being flown back now to Washington. As we look at these very familiar pictures of Tim, I hope that everyone understands that cannot believe that he is gone, that we've lost his voice, that this country has lost this premier political journalist and analyst, a man who had such passion for politics in part because he believed that politics really are the DNA of this country.

They define who we are at any given time.

He grew up on the streets of Buffalo. His dad was a guy who drove a garbage truck by day and delivered papers by night for the "Buffalo Evening News." Tim got to know the political structure of the city. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan came to Buffalo in the middle of a blizzard, this very bright young man was kind of his advanced guy. The senator said to him at the end of the trip, why don't you come back to Washington with me.

And Tim got on the plane and went to Washington and his life was changed forever. I don't think you could say enough about his relationship with his family. He was unbelievable close to Luke, his son. I remember the day that he was born. And Tim never left his side, emotionally or physically, for that matter. Luke has grown up to be a fine young man, graduated from Boston College, a real sports and political junky. They text message each other all day long and, of course, Tim's wife, Maureen, and appropriately enough they met at a Democratic political convention in 1976.

Tim often described walking her home after a late night out and he had "The Daily News" under his arm and she had "The New York Times." That pretty well summed up their differences. And they had this wonderful relationship, one Italian American and the other Irish American. Both with strong feelings about politics. And it was great fun to be in their company. It was all energy at the highest possible levels.

The sad, sad news, is, of course, that Tim came back from Italy and then was lost when he returned. Luke and Maureen are still there. And understandably, they are in a state of extraordinary shock.

They also know that Tim as a man of great faith, would want them to go on. He would often talk about loss and say, weren't we lucky to have them as long as we did? I think we feel the same way about Tim.

WILLIAMS: And Tom, a la one of his most famous on-air moments that occurred with you, the famous whiteboard, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio and Florida, Florida, Florida. Tim was so aggressively unfancy. That quality permeated all parts of his life. Never was dressed in anything more fancy than the same blue blazer with gold buttons, the way he had worn to school for so many years.

And he believed in transparency. He believed in letting people see how we do this. There is no real magic to it, it turns out. It is a collection of humans with foibles and frailties and faults doing the best they can. In his case, doing the best they could covering politics.

That was the genesis of the white board. It was better than any computer generated graphics on that election night. It was the genesis of Tim's belief that the viewers should know what we are up to.

And if Tim were here, he would warn our viewers who are tuning in and hearing this news that even this coverage is being compiled by family members of a very sad family still coming to grips with this news today.

And as we look back, it's those election night moments where it was you and Tim on the air, two guys, hearing the news at no faster speed than the viewers were, really and passing it along as soon as they knew it.

But Tom, you mentioned his reflexive knowledge of politics and the minutia, the markup of a bill, what was buried in there. What were the ornaments on the Christmas tree that a member of Congress added to it?

That was his homework. The reason Tim had less than active social life in Washington on weekends, he was home preparing for the Sunday night broadcast and people knew not to invite this guy out on Saturday nights.

Tom?

BROKAW: That's absolutely true, Brian. We talked three or four times a day. We were joined at the hip in so many ways in terms of our great passion for politics and this business. We didn't always see eye to eye on things but we could always work it out.

And of in a way, Luke. I was known as Uncle Tom, as Mike Barnicle was.

And we have to say something about Mike who is at the hospital as well.

Three of us the same generation. I'm the old guy in the group. Mike's in the middle. And Tim, we're like three brothers. I have Irish roots adds well on my mothers side. And of course it goes without saying about Barnicle and Russert.

And we would always look at each other and say, how did this happen?

Three working class guys and how did we get so lucky? Married well, doing what we love, and getting a chance to do it almost every day of our lives.

And we had a lot of laughs along the way as well. Tim was a great sports fan, obviously, of the Buffalo Bills. That caused him a lot of pain. He loved to tell the story in speeches about at one point on MEET THE PRESS where he said if he said if there's a God in Heaven, the Bills will beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl that was being played in the Rose Bowl this year.

And I called him up and I said, Tim, I think you've gone too far invoking God on MEET THE PRESS on behalf of the Bills. He said, I feel that strongly about it. And of course the Bills got clocked by the Cowboys in Pasadena in the Rose Bowl.

Tim, I watched him walk out of the stadium, his shoulders hunched over, dejected with Luke at his side. We got to the NBC party and I said, this proves something. And Tim said, what’s that? It proves that God is a Baptist, it turns out. He loved that story and told it in much of the speeches that he used around the country.

WILLIAMS: And one story I wouldn't mind telling for the first time in this, it's not terribly widely known. In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol as you come down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House is the new and glorious Newseum. The museum of media, the written word and the moving image and audio or radio news as well.

On the facade of this magnificent five, six-story high building are etched the words of the First Amendment. That was Tim's idea. And it will go on, as, perhaps, his most lasting physical monument in Washington. Tim's been on the board of the organization, and he thought what better way to remind the public constantly what our job boils down to after all.

Tim's been on the board of the organization, and he thought what better way to remind the public constantly what our job boils down to after all.

Tom, I was even thinking in the news segment as we were knowing this awful news, standing by to go on the air as MSNBC was covering the rest of the news of this day, I saw the baseball stadium in Des Moines, Iowa, center and leftfield under water.  And I thought of Michael Garter in, the former NBC News president.  On an average day, Tim would have been on the phone with Michael, who was among the founders in controlling interests in that minor league baseball team, of course, commiserating about the damage to the stadium, just as Tim was such a huge emotional help to Michael when he lost a family member.

So, all of this starts coming back.

TOM BROKAW, NBC NEWS:  It does, indeed.  He had such great passions about his friends and his family.  He, in Washington, D.C., knew virtually everyone, and he had a lot of pals up here as well, and I'm hoping that they're not all getting the news from television, because we did have to get on the air fairly swiftly this afternoon.

Tim would have wanted it no other way.  And we did this in cooperation with Maureen and Luke, who are back in Italy, after Tim's Buffalo family, his sisters and his fathers, had been notified as well.

But he loved nothing more than to get together his pals either on the phone or in person, and he had a lot of them from his experience in New York State politics and working for Senator Moynihan.  And I was always deeply touched by the care that he gave to young people.

I would send a few to him from time to time, saying, I think this young man or this young woman shares our same passions about politics and public policy.  Maybe we can find a little room in the Washington bureau for them as an intern.  And Tim would always find room for them and kind of mentor them, and then make sure that they moved on in the right direction.

You know, the thing about Tim and journalism, and politics, especially, he had great clarity of vision.  He was like a quarterback who could see the whole field.  He knew where the strengths and weaknesses of candidates were, and what was going to happen down field after one particular primary or another.

He was a tough interrogator.  There's no question about that.  But he kept his very strong personal opinions to himself.  He would go after both sides pretty aggressively.

And then, of course, there was that moment when he found himself in some unwelcomed limelight when he became a principal witness in the Scooter Libby case, because that conversation between Scooter Libby and Tim Russert is part of what triggered the special investigation of Mr.

Fitzgerald.  And Tim found himself in what he said were two of the most uncomfortable days of his life.

There he was with a broken foot hobbling into the courthouse.  And when he was faulted for stalling or asking the lawyer for Mr. Libby to repeat questions, Tim said, I knew what he was up to.  He was trying to bum rush me.  And so I was asking him to repeat the questions so I could get in my own mind exactly what it was that I wanted to say.  So I was playing his game back against him.

The legal mind at work.

WILLIAMS:  Tom, what's incredible as we run through this sad news, to think that journalism was not his original chosen career, that after college and then law school, and then seeking politics in Washington, this guy became what he did in the business of journalism, so deathly serious about it, and old school, which is what all of us old schoolers admired about him.  He was known to label those who engaged in too much commentary and too much noise in the public square, quite frankly, pamphleteers.

We're looking at videotape.  There he is with Melanie Bloom, our beloved friend and widow of our beloved friend, David Bloom, who of course died while covering the Iraq war.  Tim of such help and comfort during that awful crisis in our NBC family.

But it was before that gathering, the correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C., that Tim warned the profession about some of the trends and some of the distractions, quite frankly, that were going to, perhaps, keep us from keeping our eyes on the ball.  It was journalism and it was fairness that Tim Russert was worried about.  I think it all goes back to his roots, who he was educationally and as a lawyer -- Tom.

BROKAW:  That's true.  You know, he lead a good life.  Tim would want us to be honest about this as well.

He was paid a very, very handsome salary, indeed.  He had a big house in Washington.  He bought an even bigger house when Luke left home because he wanted to have more room for Luke and his buddies when they came back home.

Got the big television set, got the Barker lounger like his dad had up in Buffalo.  And he wanted to have more room.

He also had a house on the Atlantic Seaboard.  I'm not going to say exactly where, where he loved to go in the summertime.

He was not a great athlete by any means.  We plained softball together and basketball.  And his athletic development, I always used to tease him, stopped in the eighth grade at Canisius Junior High School.

But he loved sports.  And he loved, across the political spectrum, people who were involved in the great game of American politics.  He was on the phone to James Carville a lot, and he would be on the phone to somebody in the White House a lot.

And he worked it across the spectrum.  He had friends across the political plain.

BOB HERBERT:  had a passion for life.  And boy, did he love Bruce Springsteen.  One of the proudest moments of his life, for all of his achievements, is that when he was a student at John Carroll College in Cleveland, there was this young guy out in New Jersey, he was just beginning to make his bones as a rock 'n' roller, and Tim managed to book him for a concert on his college campus.

And Tim's great regret, which sadly will not be fulfilled, is that he never got Bruce Springsteen to appear on "MEET THE PRESS."  But they were in touch a lot over the years.

And I would always tease Tim about "MEET THE PRESS" was kind of high church for political coverage until the NBA All Star Game came along.

And then he'd find room somehow to get a couple of the NBA all stars on.

  Or at the all star break in baseball he would do the same thing.

He came to be a really good friend of his boyhood idol, Yogi Berra.  The Yankees of the 1950s were Tim's team.  And this will be very sad news to Yogi as well, because Tim and Yogi did a lot of things together.

And I think Tim is on the foundation board at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  Baseball was a grease passion of his.

WILLIAMS:  As was talking about it and talking about so many subjects in life.

We'll be watching tapes for so in years from an aspect of Tim's television life that we should remember as well, "THE TIM RUSSERT SHOW"

on CNBC, which has been a staple of weekend cable programming for years.

  When Tim was able to take a single guest, often you, sometimes me, often his favorite authors, athletes, scholars, thinkers, politicians and just talk, and air it out over a simple wooden table, which he always thought was the perfectly best solution for things like this and weighty subjects, and Tim Russert would guide the roundtable discussion with one or more guests, as he did, of course, every Sunday morning for so many year on what was, hands down, the leading Sunday morning public affairs show.

For those just joining us, I should explain in the background, American and coalition war planes are landing and taking off.  We're joining you here with Tom Brokaw in New York, from Bagram airfield in Afghanistan.

We are here, we've been here for several days, preparing to do tonight's broadcast of "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS," when word arrived from the Washington bureau that our friend and colleague, Tim Russert, had collapsed in the course of doing his work in one of the offices in the downstairs portion of the very familiar structure NBC News has on Nebraska Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Caused an obvious worried frenzy in the Washington bureau, and then as we dreaded, the worst possible news over the next few minutes, seemingly in horrible slow motion, it came.  Culminating with the word that we had lost our friend.

I want to bring in another friend and colleague, David Gregory, who have been listening to all of this on the air.

David, your thoughts?

DAVID GREGORY, NBC NEWS:  Well, I guess first to a little bit of business.  And that is that, as you and Tom have been talking about, Brian, the world is going to react to this, particularly the world of politic, namely which was Tim Russert's world here in Washington.  The president, who is in Paris tonight, has reacted through his spokeswoman, Dana Perino.  And I will just read the statement.

"President and Mrs. Bush were informed that Tim had been stricken about

3:25 this afternoon" -- again, the president in Paris tonight as part of his farewell tour to Europe -- "and of his death about 10 minutes later.

The President and Mrs. Bush will issue a written statement shortly."

This from Dana Perino.

"The President and Mrs. Bush are deeply saddened to learn the shocking news of the death of Tim Russert.  They knew him many year and were very fond of him, and appreciated what he had achieved in his career.  They express their sympathy to the entire NBC News family and to Tim's friends and family." They asked about his family and especially father.

Everyone knew of Tim's relationship with his father, now just a couple of days before Father's Day.  This is all the more poignant.

I can tell you just as somebody who covered the White House, like you, Brian, the level of interest Tim would have, anything that was significant that was happening inside the White House I'd get that call down at the White House booth saying it was Tim and wanted to talk about what I heard, what I knew, what he knew.  We'd exchange information.  He was just on top of everything.

But I have to say more personally that as much as we will pay tribute to Tim, the journalist, and to all of his establishments, my initial thoughts are about his love for his family and the love for Maureen and his son, Luke.  He could be in the middle of anything at work.  If you wanted to talk about politics, fine, if you wanted to talk about kids, your own or his, everything stopped.  And his eyes would light up, he would go into great detail.

There was nothing that he loved more than providing for his boy to a lot of access to a lot of people and a lot of great things in this country.

  And he loved to expose his boy to sports he loved.  But not just to his boy, but to my boy and others who had come to Nationals Park here in DC and see him at games, he would be Uncle Tim and get the kids baseballs from the catchers.  He loved kids and loved his own and anybody else's.

So I think that's a big part of our sense of loss here, is knowing the pain his family's going through and how much love, you know, you just think about whatever thoughts may have gone through his mind, God bless him, at the end, that he thought about his family principally as his first love.

Brian?

WILLIAMS:  And, David, while you were talking, the last piece of videotape we're watching is an employee satellite meeting with the chairman of General Electric, our parent company, Jeff Immelt.  Which Tim would always call, quote, taking one for the team.  But he always did it, as we're often asked as you’re asked, as I’m asked, because of his work ethic that never changed.  And so many stories are going to be told over these next few days for the first time.

You mentioned dropping everything for family.  Now it can be told, often we were on the air either for NIGHTLY NEWS or a special report, election night, everything but debates.  In an almost audible murmur, Tim would be just off the camera talking a call to Luke.  Usually about a sporting event or whatever Luke had planned in his life.

And David, Andrea Mitchell is sitting a few weeks from you in our Washington newsroom, listening, who I know has a lot to add to this.

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Well, watching Luke grow up through Tim's eyes, watching the pride and the baby pictures expand to the pictures of a young man, a graduate of Boston College, the pride he felt in Luke that he felt in anything that Luke did, I recall coming in and in the parking lot Tim was sitting in his car, I asked him if he was OK.  He was sitting in that pickup truck listening to Luke on XM Radio and the program he broadcasts.  The sports program he does with James Carville.

This relationship with his son is the central part of his life.  That and Maureen and, of course, Big Russ.  Tim, in this bureau, when people were in trouble, when anyone had a problem, medical or any other kind of problem, the first person you would go to, not an easily explainable fact that the bureau chief was such a father figure and such a help to anybody who was in trouble with any part of the extended family.

Any of us who have had illnesses or problems with our own parents have always gone to Tim first.  He is the most responsive person in any emergency.  I know that this is public knowledge, they have been so public about what they have done for their son, Jeffrey.  Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff.  Tom is the godfather to Tim Hunt and the second son of Al and Judy, and, of course, their eldest, Jeffrey, had a serious disability and through that entire process where the Hunt-Woodruff family was going through this extraordinary trouble, Tim has been with them at every step of the way, and I know that – I talked to Judy Woodruff and know how the family feels.  These families are so close as are, of course, the Brokaws and Mike Barnicle and the others people in his orbit.

I know when Daniel Patrick Moynihan was ill, then we sadly lost him, the way that Tim Russert stood with Liz Moynihan, his widow, and his embrace was the strongest embrace of anyone outside of the immediate family.  We talked about his Jesuit education.  He talks often about that.  What he learned in law school and in high school, also what he learned from the nuns as an elementary student and the way the nuns brought him up and taught him the discipline.

And he was amazingly disciplined and also the love and the way he reached out to people in every measure.  I know that Brian, that you and Tom and David and all of us have traveled with Tim.  Whether traveling back from New Hampshire to Iowa, the middle of the night flight from Iowa to New Hampshire, landing at 4:00 in the morning and the way -- even as exhausted as he was, as everyone was, when he is seen in an airport there, is no stopping people from surrounding Tim Russert.  So accessible.  And he loves talking to people.

Just the other day on the air he was reflecting on something that he had heard from a security guard at one of the debates.  Something he learned just from talking to people.  Because Tim was always the person so easily approached by anyone in any walk of life, and he collected information, was constantly gathering information.  I remember the first debate that I was a moderator on, I was on the panel.  The Dukakis/Bush debate.  The first of those two debates.

And there was a debate whether to have a debate.  This was going to be the final debate of the ‘88 campaign.  Tim, as we were at the last minute flying across country and collecting information and trying to do data, he was going over the questions he might ask if he were on that panel and going through possible choices with me.  He was always teaching each of us to be as rigorous as he was in looking at all of the facts, examining everything and then being as balanced and fair and down the middle as anyone could possibly be.

Anyone who have substituted to us on the two days a year, maximum two days a year when he would take off from MEET THE PRESS, would be overwhelmed with the obligation of living up as much as anyone could to the Russert standard of going through anything that any political figure ever said and comparing and contrasting and trying to find the wiggle room.

And as anyone who's ever been on the program knows, whether it was Bob Dole, who was on more than any other guest or any of the other current or former senators or political candidates, they would have to brace themselves for the MEET THE PRESS primary.

That was before the money primary, before Iowa, before New Hampshire, there was the MEET THE PRESS primary.  Who could stand up to the rigor of sitting down for an hour with Tim Russert.  Some could, some couldn't.  Some were afraid to even try.  It became the gold standard of political journalism, of any kind of broadcast journalism was going man to man or woman to man with Tim Russert.  And he did it with humor and grace and passion for politics and Brian and Tom and David, all of us are the better for knowing him and the fact that any of us can talk and broadcast today is a tribute to what he has taught us about being able to get through any emergency as we did through other emergencies and other losses in public life because our hearts are breaking.  Brian?

WILLIAMS:  Absolutely.  Andrea, we have lost Tom Brokaw to go deal with this and make some phone calls.  It strikes me the three of us on the air, now, you, me, and David, have all, A, been guests on MEET THE PRESS in various roles, B, guest hosted for Tim Russert on MEET THE PRESS when he would take his one, two, Sundays off a year.  That was on a big down-time year for Tim.

He was as addicted to his work as anyone I know.  Because it really was his life's love.  Tom made the point, Tim would want us to say he won the lottery in life.  He struck it as big as any kid from Buffalo with big dreams ever could.  And that passion for the common folk because he came from those very roots never left him.

He knew about what's been, of course, labeled the wisdom of the crowd.

The wisdom of the every day people who make up the United States.  It's not a special tool.  It probably should be common equipment, standard equipment for everybody in the business following and engaging politics.

  It often isn't.  Just as the expression, the term of art in Washington politics back in the Roosevelt years and thereafter was, "have you run it by Sidney?", to reflect a powerful political power broker within this network.  If it had to do with politics, the question that always followed was, "have you run it by Tim?".

            We've been watching some of the videotape.  Think of the string of successive presidents Tim has known and interviewed.  Think of his American exclusive interview with Pope John Paul II, one of, at the time, the most dramatic moments in television interview history when, of course, the industry was at a very different stage than it is now.

            We should mention the ubiquitous cable channels, the Internet, and the fact that, you know, Tim unabashedly openly liked his television journalism a certain way, and said so at every opportunity he was given.

  David Gregory came up as did so many folks in the Washington bureau under Tim Russert as bureau chief, became White House correspondent, went onto, as I said, sit in that chair, fill in for Tim Russert.

            David, talk about how cross culturally and in terms of political parties especially, these deep roots in the Republican Party, these deep roots in the Democratic Party, a rolodex as thick and long-lasting as any in Washington, and really nothing got past him.

            GREGORY:  Well, it was extraordinary just how connected he was all across this town, across the parties with a reputation that was sterling for toughness, for fairness, and for having a platform on his program, as you've said many times already here that was considered the place to appear if you were a politician in this town, in this country.

            And for anyone who was seeking the presidency, that was a required hour of television, a grilling that you had to go through whether you wanted to or not to kind of prove your mettle against Tim Russert.

            And as the primaries unfolded in this incredible election year, he had everybody on and put a great deal of pressure on everybody to come on.

And I'm just -- I mean, I tell you, so many of us are -- all of us in shock, here, as we're both talking about Tim and reflecting on Tim.

            And I've gotten on my BlackBerry statements or well wishes from executives at the Nationals baseball team.  And now, as I alluded to just a couple of minutes ago, a statement from the president, who is traveling in Europe.  He's in Paris.  And I'll read the statement by the president.

            "Laura and I are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Tim Russert.

  Those of us who knew and worked with Tim, his many friends and the millions of Americans who loyally followed his career on the air will all miss him.  As the longest-running -- serving host of the longest-running program on the history of television, he was an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades.

            "Tim was a tough and hard-working newsman.  He was always well-informed and thorough in his interviews.  And he was as gregarious off the set as he was prepared on it.  Most important, Tim was a proud son and father, and Laura and I offer our deepest sympathies to his wife, Maureen, his son, Luke, and the entire Russert family.  We will all keep them in our prayers."

            And, Brian, Tim, you know, went to his share of state dinners at the White House over the years, but I think what he enjoyed most was when he brought Luke down to the White House to meet the president, to spend time in the Oval Office and all presidents would, you know, be so gracious with Tim and with Luke and show them around.

            But there were some events that President Bush would gather these hall-of-fame baseball players and Tim would regale me with the stories of being part of that gathering and getting the interviews and being with all of these great players and allowing Luke to have that access.

That just gave him so much pleasure.

            And I would swap stories with him about wanting to do these kinds of things for my boy -- for my oldest boy and take him to ball games out of town and all of this.  And I would kind of get Tim's permission, what do I tell my wife, you know, who may be against this?  And he would say, oh, I've been doing this with Luke since he was 6 years old.  He just had so much joy about all of that.

            And just one other personal indulgence, and I think Andrea would share this as well, and other people in this bureau.  You know, he called me within a couple of hours of my first son being born and just spent time on the phone for 20 minutes reliving the birth of his own son, and you know, took time to make all of the kids pillows with their name and the date of their birth on it.

            That was Tim's signature.  Tim has a lot of signatures in his public life, in his national life.  Not everybody may know that that's his favorite gift of choice if you have a child.  So a lot of memories today

-- Brian.

            WILLIAMS:  Well, the other night in New York, Tim found the one technician who had not heard his Bruce Springsteen story from college, and told it in front of me for easily the fourth time, knowing exactly what he was doing, knowing that I split my upbringing between Upstate New York and New Jersey.

            Andrea, that was the kind of Irish-Catholic storyteller, and to have worked for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, king of them all, this was our Tim Russert, who most recently was forced to talk about this coverage of Ted Kennedy's diagnosis, which affected Tim deeply.  Ted was one of his huge network of friends in Washington.

            MITCHELL:  Well, Tim is very, very close to the Kennedy family.  Has always been.  As you know, Maria Shriver worked here and was particularly close to Tim, is close to Tim.  And the Shriver boys and best buddies and their charities, Tim has been enormously helpful too.

So that was a big shock to the system.  And he has been close to the Kennedys, to Ethel, to everyone in the Kennedy family for a very long time as you can imagine.

            Also having worked for Mario Cuomo in New York and being part of the New York political network when he -- back years and decades ago when he was in that political nexus.

            I'm thinking, myself, about my marriage and Tim being at my wedding and how important it was to me as Tim had watched that part of my life develop and had been so supportive of everything.  And the fact that my husband was on "MEET THE PRESS" and Tim and I -- Tim had him and I on together within the last year and we did a moment together on "MEET THE PRESS," and how treasured a moment that is to me now.

            There are so many things that we think about in our personal lives and our professional lives, every debate, every election night, all the coverage.  I recall being assigned -- during the transition in 1988, Brian, I was assigned to cover the transition, to cover what I thought would be an assignment to cover the White House.

            And I was sent up to Kennebunkport to cover the incoming president.

And during Thanksgiving weekend when I was there and doing my assignment, I found out rather abruptly, found out quite by accident that instead I was being sent to Capitol Hill, and that somebody else was going to be covering the White House.

            And I had been at the White House for eight years.  To say that it was a disappointment is fairly obvious.  I called Tim and we talked about it, and he -- and our mutual friend, Al Hunt, said that I had died and gone to heaven because for a political reporter there was no better place to be than to be covering the Senate of the United States.

            And of course I discovered it was exactly true.  And I cannot begin to tell you for four years in the Senate, every morning began with Tim and me discussing what the story ideas were.  Where was the budget action?

Was it in the White House?  Was it on Capitol Hill?  Who's doing what?

What would be going on in the negotiations?  Where would Jim Baker be?

What would Dick Darman -- who also sadly passed away way too young, all of the major players on the Hill.

            Tim was so plugged in.  And I would be calling him and I would say, you know, I know this, what do you want to do?  And he would pass it to the White House correspondent and then pass information back to me.  We had such a team here.  We were clicking on cylinders.

            And every night, "NIGHTLY NEWS" was cutting edge.  And at the end of a couple of months when we had scandals, the speaker of house resigning, being forced out, the savings and loan, Keating Five, one story after another he called me and he said, was I right, Mitch?  He calls me Mitch.  There are only two people in the world who call me Mitch, one is Tim Russert, the other is my dad.

            And he just started calling me Mitch, without, I think, even knowing that my dad calls me Mitch.  And that's his nickname for me.  Always will be.  And he called me and he said, was I right?  And of course he was right.

            Everything that I learned outside of the White House about covering politics I learned at his feet and learned by following in his shoes on Capitol Hill and listening closely to everything he said about learning the House and the Senate and following people back to their offices and not being stuck in a little cubical listening to what was said on the air, but going to the hearings and grabbing people as they would take a break to go to the bathroom.

            And that's the way I learned to do politics, learning it all from this guy who came and took over our bureau in 1988 and changed the way politics is covered forevermore, not only on television, but on the Web, in MITCHELL:  every possible way that we cover politics.  People are imitating the kind of research and the kind of careful study that Tim Russert does and did every day.  And there's no way to describe this man who was larger than life.  Who had the passions for baseball and football, for the Bills, for his family.  There's no one who was filled with more love and life than Tim Russert.  And it is inexplicable, it is impossible to believe that he is not with us.  Brian?

WILLIAMS:  Andrea Mitchell, classy to the very last word, to the point all that Andrea omitted from the story about being moved from the White House to the Senate, replaced by a new White House correspondent, was that the white house correspondent hired to that slot, who meant no offense to Ms. Mitchell, the occupant of the job, was yours truly.  I swear to this day, it wasn't my fault.  I was following orders.

MITCHELL:  Actually, Brian, it was John Cochran.

WILLIAMS:  Oh.  So that’s two hops ago.

MITCHELL:  I'm talking about the first time.  Right.

WILLIAMS:  So Tim guided both transitions.  For people just joining us, and I suppose as the hour reaches 5:30 on the East Coast.  A lot of people are joining us.  I happen to be with you from Baghram airfield, 5:30, rather East Coast Time.  I happen to be you from Baghram Airfield in Afghanistan, where most of our broadcast was going be devoted to this U.S. military operation here.  Instead, sadly, our subject has been changed on us for reasons we would all give anything not to be true.

When word arrived this afternoon that our friend and colleague and mentor to so many people at NBC News, really the one person that people in politics and journalism, more often than not, in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, have in common, Tim Russert collapsed at our NBC News Washington bureau, bureau chief since 1984 and died this afternoon at the age of 58.

It is so incredibly painful to admit, that among the survivors, his dad, Big Russ, his wife, Maureen, his son, Luke Russert and son, what you're witnessing here are really the first round of conversations and reminiscences of people who, as his friend just are talking about what they remember about Tim Russert.  What I'm going to do is go prepare for tonight's NBC NIGHTLY NEWS and my friend, Keith Olbermann is going to help move our coverage along.

Gene Robinson has joined us from the "Washington Post" a whole bunch of friends are going to come forward and want to be heard about our mutual friend, Tim Russert, and first, David Gregory has heard from yet, another of the presidential candidates as all of official Washington will be reacting to this awfully sad news.  David?

DAVID GREGORY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Thank you, Brian.  I'm scrolling through my Blackberry here as reactions are coming in from all over Washington.  And from the campaign trail as well.  We've heard from John McCain and this from candidate Obama, Senator Obama.  We'll see this on camera, I believe in a few moments as well.  Quote, "We all, I think, have heard the news about Tim Russert.  I've known Tim Russert since the first spoke at the convention.  I came to consider not only a journalist, but a friend.  There wasn't a better interviewer in television, not a more thoughtful analyst of our politics and he was also one of the finest men I knew.  Somebody who cared about America, cared about the issues, cared about family.  I am grief stricken with the loss, and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family.  And I hope his family life, and I hope even though Tim is irreplaceable, that the standard he set in his professional life and with his family life are standards that we all carry with us in our own lives."

That, the comments from Senator Obama.  Keith Olbermann, back to you now.

OLBERMANN:  Thank you.  Senator McCain issued his own statement about Tim’s passing.  "I am very saddened by Tim Russert's sudden death.

Cindy and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the Russert family as they cope with the tragic loss and remember the legacy of a loving husband, father, and the preeminent journalist of his generation.  He was truly a great American who loved his family, his friends, his Buffalo Bills," the senator noted, "and everything about politics in America.  He was just a terrific guy.  I was proud to call him a friend.

  In the coming days, we will pay tribute to a life whose contributions to us all will long endure."

Senator McCain with a very moving statement about the passing of Tim Russert.  Andrea Mitchell is still with us.  One thing I heard in everything that everyone said in the last hour since the sad news came to us, Andrea, and the heartbreak spread through your offices and mine here, it was expressed by everybody, but nobody talked about it.  I don't know in my 30 years from broadcasting if I ever met anybody who enjoyed what he did from the beginning to the end, every aspect of it, enjoyed it more than Tim Russert and more importantly showed that as he did.  Would you agree?

MITCHELL:  He loved politics.  Loved people.  Loved sports.  Above all else, loved Luke and Maureen and Big Russ.  I think loved a lot of us, you know.  The people who worked for him.  You know, came to me a couple of years ago and said, I've got this great, young woman working in my office.  I need to find a place for her.  Will you give her a tryout as my researcher?  She is an extraordinary associate producer.  She's one of the legion of young people who have come through the Tim Russert training.  We have researchers and producers on MEET THE PRESS who are simply put, the best in the business.  People try to pick them off all the time f you want to use a sports analogy.  There's no way they would become – that they would go on any kind of trade to anybody else because they are so devoted to Tim.  They know they are working for the best, the smartest, the most enthusiastic, the most passionate.

The man who deeply loves politics more than anyone else.  So nobody ever leaves his staff.  There's no turnover on MEET THE PRESS, except when some can pull someone away to do political producing for the rest of us, for the rest of the bureau.  They are so, so good at what they do.  They are going to be -- they are in mourning beyond measure.  Because this was a team that lived together, traveled the together, eat, breathe politics together.

You know, Keith a lot of us, Tom and Brian, you have been a lot together.  We've been through assassinations and attacks on our country.

And anthrax and personal loss and illnesses and all kinds of crises.

And there was always one reliable person in our lives.  People change at the network, and people change in the front office, but there's always been Tim Russert, and that's one of the reasons there are a lot of young people here today.  Some of us are tough and have been through a lot, but there are a lot of young people in this newsroom who need a big embrace, because they -- from the youngest to the oldest, the people in this newsroom have been part of Tim Russert's extended, expanded family.

I can think, also, of so many times when he would sneak out to baseball games, whether it was with Luke or whether it was the Orioles and until the Nationals finally came here.  There were those days when Tim would play hooky.  And he would be racing out of here baseball games most often, anything involving Luke and anything involving Boston College, so, Keith, this is a hard day, but you're absolutely right.  The passion and love that this man had for everything in life, politics, perhaps, above all, except for his family was extraordinary.

OLBERMANN:  Youth and inexperience or experience and veteran, it makes no difference now.  There is a piece of all of us gone today in the loss of Tim, Andrea.

Let's turn to Howard Fineman of "Newsweek" who is often with us on MSNBC and on election nights.  I don't know -- it seems like an extraordinary thing to be talking about, Tim Russert dying and leaving us.  The best part, for me, on election night whether I was at home or involved in -- lucky enough to be involved in it, was those segments when Tim Russert was on.  It was the centerpiece of all that we did here.

HOWARD FINEMAN, "NEWSWEEK":  Well, he was such a big and constant and upbeat and enthusiastic, passionate presence, not only here at the NBC bureau where I'm speaking to you from, but around the city and around the country.  That it's virtually impossible to get your mind around the idea he's suddenly been taken from us.  It really is almost incomprehensible.  He was that big, and that well-respected, Keith.

Here in Washington, can be a very cynical, jealous town of too many ambitious people, in too small a place.  Tim was not lacking for ambition.  INEMAN:  But I dare say he had virtually no enemies in this city, because he always defeated cynicism and skepticism with hard work, smile, and preparation.

            Andrea talked about how he loved reporting and he loved journalism.

Well, the interesting thing is he came to it as a second career, really.

  He trained to be a lawyer.  He would have been a fabulous one.  He used his legal skills on "Meet the Press" every week.  He was a press secretary to some of the most interesting and larger than life characters American politics has produced, people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, close to Mario Cuomo and so forth.

            And, yet when he got into journalism, he went in with his entire mind and soul.  I never saw anybody who was more happy to be fed a morsel of news, of digging reporting than Tim Russert.

            But family was above all, of course, and the thing I remember most, that first came to my mind, Keith, was being with Tim down in Florida.

I forget where.  It was a few months ago.  There was a big event about to happen.  He and I found ourselves in a restaurant together.  We sat down, had a quick bite.  He kept excusing himself from the table to go stand up away from other people, so he could talk to his father, Russ.

            What he was essentially doing was, by long range, by cell phone, managing his aging father's life back in Buffalo.  He came back to the table and he said to me, you know, Howard, what I've got to do up there is I've got seven or eight people who drop in on my dad every day in our old home in Buffalo.  My dad doesn't know that I've arranged all this.

He thinks these people are just dropping by to see him, bringing him food and keeping him company.  But I have to run this whole thing from there.

            I never saw a greater love.  People have talked about his love for his son.  I've never seen a greater love from son to father that he was expressing by taking care of his dad, even by long distance.  It really was remarkable.  He was a remarkable guy.

            OLBERMANN:  He was good enough to tell me that story as well.  John Harwood of cNBC and the "New York Times" is also within earshot.  John, our condolences go to you, particularly, because you were on a show that

-- Tim's weekend show for MSNBC that he taped this morning, correct?

            JOHN HARWOOD, "THE NEW YORK TIMES":  Keith, we taped the show this morning at NBC studios.  It was my colleague, Jerry Sibe (ph), and I, who were on to promote a book that we've done.  As we walked out of the studio, Jerry said, you know, I don't think Tim felt very well.  Tim had described coming back from Rome last night.  I didn't think anything of it.  I can't tell you what a shock it was a few hours later to hear this news.

            I want to echo the thinks that Howard has just said.  Tim was such a remarkable person, both personally and professionally.  The way that he punctured the pretense of politicians and other people -- he told us a story while we were taping a show, today, about when he was on Pat Moynihan's staff in the Senate.  He was describing one of his colleagues, who was sort of an imperious intellectual, who was kind of beating up a younger staff member who supposedly didn't understand the nuances of policy that the senior guy thought were very important.

            Tim turned to the guy at one point in the meeting and said, can you name the four members of the Beatles, not even last names, just first names.  He just brought the guy down like that because the guy didn't know the answer.  He did the same thing to politicians, not in a disrespectful way, not in a way that was filled with cheap shots, but because of his preparation and persistence and toughness.  There's no higher service that any of us in this business can do than to expose the contradictions, the gap, the double talk in politicians, and make it easier for voters to make a decision for our democracy to work.

Nobody's going to fill that gap.

            OLBERMANN:  It's such a great point, John.  I was thinking about this.

  We don't really perceive back to the day in 1991 when Tim took over "Meet the Press."  It was one of television's oldest shows, one of the oldest, continuous news related programming shows in television by that point and a franchise that wasn't going anywhere.  But circumstances were changing in television and in media and in politics.  And shows like "Meet the Press" and the equivalents on CBS and ABC were, to some degree, waning.

            Tim Russert reinvigorated not merely "Meet the Press," where it is the central point -- it is the pre-game show for the entire week of politics in America, of news in America.  But he reinvigorated the entire genre.

  Wondering from your unique perspective of being half in television, half outside it, still, if there was something in particular that made that possible.

            HARWOOD:  I think it is some of what Howard was talk about.  He had legal training.  He had a very sharp mind.  He was somebody who could go, sort of, high and low, who had a very deep understanding of policy and the important issues of our politics, but never forgot people on the ground.  He always had his feet on the ground.  The constant references to the Buffalo Bills, that just wasn't, you know, a put on.  That was real about Tim.

            And -- well, I don't know what to say beyond that, Keith.  It was -- the contribution that he made to our business was pretty profound.

There were some politicians who were scared to go on his show.  But not because they thought they were going to get a cheap shot, but because they thought they were going to be exposed for shortcomings in their preparation or their programs.  You know, if you could pass the Tim Russert test, you could do something in this business.

            OLBERMANN:  There was nothing resembling the preparation of Tim Russert in any field, whether it was politics, news, anything connected to television, I would think.

            Let me pause, now, in case you're joining us for the first time and not have heard the details of what happened today, on what is truly a heartbreaking day I think for the entirety of the news business, particularly here at NBC and MSNBC.  Tim Russert, our Washington bureau chief, the moderator of "Meet the Press," for all of us on the air and off, our leader, collapsed and passed away this afternoon in the Washington bureau, having just returned to work after a vacation with his family to Italy.  He died this afternoon.  Tim Russert was 58 years old.

            Howard Fineman, the question of this ability to turn almost any fact that he came across into something he could use later, I was just thinking about this.  It didn't happen more than 20 feet from where I'm sitting right now.  The best part of getting to work with him was when we'd be off the air after one of these extraordinary primary nights in the last five months, and five hours had elapsed, six hours had elapsed, seven hours had elapsed.  You go out in the hallway, and Tim would have already started his own private post-game show for the rest of us.

            That conversation furthered what he had discussed, what had happened, what was going to happen next in politics, small details, big details, would go on for 10 or 20 minutes.  It was as informative, often, as anything that went on on the air.  He was ceaselessly fascinated by this subject.  And made you ceaselessly fascinated by it as well.

            FINEMAN:  And he wanted to share.  He wanted to share and he wanted to know what you thought.  A great listener.  You know, one of the most different things for any human being, and paradoxically, often for journalists, is to really listen.  One of the keys to the success of Tim's show, in addition to his legal background and his blue collar background, was that he really, really listened.

            Yes, he loved it all.  He loved the journalism, because, as I say, he came to it as a kind of second marriage, if you will, professionally.

He was passionate about it, always passionate about politics.  I first met Tim Russert in 1984 when he was a young, young guy spin doctoring for the Democrats in New York during the New York primary that year.  We had a press room set up on the top floor of the old Plaza Hotel, of all places, and I watched the entire press corps, which at that time was a bunch of grizzled old guys of the pre-Baby Boom generation, absolutely awe struck and listening to every word this young Tim Russert from Buffalo had to say.

            Tim completely understood the facts, the spin, the egos in the room, the deadlines.  He knew everything about it from beginning to end.  It's as though he was born with this sense, but then he developed it in all degrees.

            I want to say, again, as an observer in Washington, he really was a rare, rare person, and in that sense a treasured person who was powerful, who was important, who was often bigger than life.  I'm telling you that time and time again, he defeated cynicism and jealousy and back stabbing with sheer hard work, honestness, love of his family, love of his hometown.  As John Harwood was saying, that was all real.

            I happen to be from Pittsburgh.  I wrote a piece a few months ago for the magazine about Pittsburgh during the Pennsylvania primary.  Out of the blue I get a call from Russert.  Great piece.  We don't talk every day.  Great piece.  I care so much about these cities.  We've got to do everything we can to bring these cities back.  Totally out of the blue, totally heartfelt.  That was Tim Russert.

            OLBERMANN:  My next question was exactly about that.  Let me pause for a second to read you a statement from someone indelibly associated with Tim Russert because of that dry erase board in the 2000 election, the former Vice President of the United States Al Gore from Nashville, saying "the United States and the world have lost a great journalist, interviewer, author.  He was an original and will be greatly missed."

Al Gore on Tim Russert.

            Howard, that point about generosity.  I don't know of anybody who ever stepped in front of a camera, certainly, not to ignore people who didn't, but no one here who stepped in front of a camera, touching even the outside perimeters of NBC News or MSNBC, who didn't, at some point, get some sort of encouragement, often once a week, from Tim Russert.

    Exactly that nature -- right out of the blue, as if you knew you needed to hear from him.

    FINEMAN:  And showing his deep, real interest in all of these things.  I mean, he was inside and out from Buffalo, from his Catholic background, from his Jesuit training, from his family, from his beloved wife, Maureen, his son, Luke, every inch what he said he was.  That's also a rarity in Washington.  It's something to be treasured and I think, among other things, it's going to -- things that are going to happen in the days ahead, there will of course be the wonderful remembrances of Tim and there will be a lot of thinking at this rather self-reflective time in journalism, anyway, Keith.

    This is a time of a lot of questions about our mission as journalisms, who we are, what we do, why we do what we do, what is good or bad about what we do.  Tim was all good.  I mean that from the bottom of my heart.  He was -- what he did was to advance the public debate in a good way.  He tried his hardest.  He was an honest guy, on and off the air.  Listened carefully.  Was paradoxically not swayed by his own position.

    What he cared about -- the reason I think he came back from Italy early, even though Maureen, his wife, and his son, Luke, were still in Italy, was of course to begin to preparing for "Meet the Press."  Tim preparing for "Meet the Press" was like the United States Army preparing to invade France.

    Saturday night was off limits for Tim Russert.  He's the kind of guy in the kind of position that could have been the social guy all around Washington on Saturdays.  He shut down most times at 6:00 Saturday, went to bed at 9:00, so he could be up at 4:00 to read the wires, read the web pages, read the papers, to make sure he had the last possible news, the latest possible news for "Meet the Press."  Utter, utter dedication.  Utter dedication.  That's how he did it with that show.

    OLBERMANN:  Senator Joe Lieberman with a statement now, Howard, on Tim Russert.

    "He was," as the senator says, "the embodiment of journalists, integrity and clarity who shed light on how our politics and our government work."  And then a great, apt phrase from Senator Lieberman, "Tim became an American institution and the explainer in chief of our political life.  I have very fond memories of Tim both on and off the air.  He will be truly missed by all Americans.  My prayers are with his family that he loved so much."

    Joe Lieberman, the Independent senator from Connecticut.

    The explainer in chief -- Andrea Mitchell, I think that's the perfect phrase.

    MITCHELL:  Explainer in chief is a perfect phrase, Keith.

    The baseball hall-of-fame -- he was a board member.  Our friend and colleague, Chris Donovan, who worked for Tim for many, many years as the top research team, the crack research team on "Meet the Press."  Chris Donovan has shared with us a statement from the baseball hall-of-fame. 

He was a board member.

    From Jean Forbes Clark (ph) on his passing, "We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of Tim's sudden passing.  He was integral member of our board of directors and its executive committee.  He cared about the hall-of-fame and its mission so much.  We'll miss Tim's critical thinking and his unsurpassed passion for the game tremendously."

    Which brings to mind those interviews with Yogi Bera (ah) and Whitey Ford (ah), and the other hall-of-famers.  He found any excuse to do a show.  The CNBC show, which is now on MSNBC, at the ballpark.  And -- bringing those guys in and having their memories, he basically had an oral history similar to what Faye Vincent (ph) has just put in print, in his book about the baseball heroes of the '50s and '60s.

    And Tim and I are not so far apart in age, that we have the same heroes.  And -- his being a Yankees fans, a little transformed now to the Nationals, but we really have the same roots there with the New York Yankees.

    I also remember Tim talking to me when I was writing a book.  He had written his book, of course, the No. 1 best seller, "Big Russ and Me,"

and he reminded me how important is was to check everything.  Because, he said, our memories of our youth, of our childhood are not accurate. 

And you can have a memory of something that is so clear in your mind's eye, and it just, when you check it out, and go to the archives, it didn't happen.

    And so -- he taught me how to find the right way to research my own memoir because he had done it so well and so successfully and had found what the pitfalls were.  And then in talking about childhood, we were talking about John F. Kennedy and how he recalled as a boy, his father piling them in the car and getting -- his earliest memory of politics is John F. Kennedy coming to Buffalo in 1960.  And the Russert family finding the right overpass -- and I won't remember this correctly -- but it's in the book, you can look it up, finding the right way to see the motorcade of JFK as he campaigned in Buffalo.

    So, those memories, being Irish and feeling that connection terribly important.  I remember presidential trips as bureau chief, Tim would often be the designated pool leader, which would be to organize all of the television coverage for presidential trips.  And so he would be along the way when we went to Moscow with Bill Clinton in 1993 and in other trips.  And he would be, not just organizing the interviews with the president, but also the coverage for all the networks and also, of course, showing his vast knowledge.

    The man read everything; he saw everything.  There wasn't a day that I have not come into this bureau that Tim wasn't ahead of me in discovering some little fact that would better inform my work.  And when I think of all the times where he has suggested a story, I'd pick up the phone and without instruction, it would just be, Mitch, try this out, make this call, here's an idea.  And then he'd say, go get them.  And that was always his way of cheering us on, whether it was the presidential debate, election coverage or sending me out to cover two freight trains that had collided in suburban Washington, D.C.

    It was always Tim cheering us on.  And some people have said, where do we all get our energy? Where do reporters go morning, noon, night, MSNBC, CNBC, cut-ins, local news -- where do we get this energy to do this?

    It's leadership, and the leadership came from the top. And it comes

-- not just from the top at 30 Rock, and it certainly does from there, but the incentive in this little colony comes from Tim Russert, who has infected all of us with the joy of journalism, and the love of politics and everything we do, no matter how trivial or how major.

    The other thing about Tim is teaching all of us and making sure that this filters down to the beginners who are our desk assistants and will someday be our stars to make sure everything is done so that we get the facts right and we don't go on the air until we know what we're talking about.  Of course, there are slips and slides in this day and age, but not that many.  And if there are, Tim is the first to call us out on it.

    OLBERMANN:  You took my breath away, because I was just going through the last few e-mails that I'd gotten from Tim, and one of them ended with, "go get them," which was the exhortation, it was the excelsior, the chant for all of us.

    One other question, Andrea, because of your experience and years with NBC News, I'm fascinated, and was fascinated, to watch Tim Russert's absolute adaptability to every change that happened.  As I suggested earlier,  not to say that "Meet the Press" was any kind of throes in 1991, but the world was changing, television was changing, utterly, it's changed probably a dozen times since 1991.

    And each time it seemed that Tim was right ahead of the curve as we went through this last political season -- the primary season, and so much happened that was shifted to cable.  Tim was right out in front of that.  There was no seconds hesitation, to say, all right, this is where the ball game's being played, I'm taking the field and I'm taking all of you with me.

    MITCHELL:  Well, it's no accident that when we would talk about MSNBC being, "the place for politics," it's because of Tim and Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams and the people who know it best joining all the rest of us on MSNBC.  It's them who where providing the leadership to make all of us so much better.

    But Tim's adaptability, and the way he took "Meet the Press" from the No. 1 show that it always was, but -- it was pretty competitive with David Brinkley in those years on ABC.  And then in 1991, he transformed that broadcast.  He made it what it is today.  First of all, going to the hour, that was Tim Russert, and, expanding it.  And with respect to the history, I mean, no one was more aware of the proud tradition of "Meet the Press" in all of its years than Tim Russert with the "Meet the Press" minutes, with all of the acknowledgements to large feedback.

    It was Tim Russert who went to the National Archives and discovered that some of those archives were being lost, that some of those early kinescopes (ph) of "Meet the Press" had not been preserved, and made sure that the rest of them were preserved. He -- when he finds something, he so loves the historic references.  But at the same time, everything with him is absolutely current, absolutely up to the minute, no matter what it takes.  He moved that broadcast into the, you know, the show that it is, the standard breaker -- the standard bearer of our network, but also the program that created the political dialogue that everyone wanted to know about not only all day Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and the rest of the week.

            "Meet the Press" becomes -- became what it is because of Tim Russert.

And it was the vision of Michael Gardner (ph) back then, who was the president of NBC, and put him on the air.  This man was the vice president of NBC in charge of the "Today" program and other shows but not a broadcaster.  And at the time, Al Hunt and I and David Broder and a few others were doing political commentary -- analysis, I should say

-- not commentary, analysis -- on the "Today" program, and Tim was added to that mix.  Tim was added to "Meet the Press."  And it was so clear that the people who had the vision at NBC to put him out front.  And it was not an easy step.  It was controversial to have a bureau chief and a vice president who was also on air.

            But the way he shared information -- David Gregory referred to this earlier.  For decades now, Tim has been the first person on the phone to say, Here's what I've got, here's some information, whether it's telling something to me or David or any of the other correspondents, or, Here's a smart way you can approach this story tonight, or, We should really be doing this story.

            He was a coach/player, a manager/coach...

            OLBERMANN:  Yes.

            MITCHELL:  ... whatever you want to call it, who was absolutely at the top of his game and who concluded "Meet the Press" last Sunday when he had the entire political team, all of us who were covering politics here this year for NBC -- he had all of the correspondents on, and a lot of us hadn't seen each other because since some of the last primaries, we had crossed paths but had not all been in the same studio on a Sunday morning.  And he brought us all together.  That was his idea, and Betsy Fisher (ph), his extraordinary executive producer and good friend.  And Betsy pulled us all together in one place, and we had a great conversation, speared by Tim, about what we've learned this year and what we can look forward to.

            And it was Tim's guidance that not only inspired us, but also concluded

-- as you see him there with Melanie Bloom at one of the David Bloom memorials.  I mean, when think about the things that happened to us here on NBC, the loss of David Bloom, who has a plaque on the wall at this bureau, who was our White House correspondent, who led our war coverage, and the fact that Melanie Bloom at the Bloom scholarship's -- at our annual Radio Television Correspondents Dinner just this last  year, Melanie Bloom and the girls, her wonderful three girls, stood up and introduced everyone to the next phase of Melanie's life.

            And I know Melanie is this weekend in Nantucket, where Tim has had, with Maureen and Luke, so many wonderful times.  And Tim being so much a part of life of that community as the leader of charities -- all of the charity dinners that this man goes to, not to schmooze with other people, but to be the speaker, to lend his name, to help raise money for Boys and Girls Clubs and Best Buddies and all of these other causes.

            This man has done more to raise the profile of needy charities than anyone else I know and does it willingly and happily, gladly, in his spare time, if there is such a thing as spare time.  So there are just so many people deeply affected by this.

            I can't begin to tell you of the e-mails from viewers that we're already getting and from friends and from people in the political world.

  It's -- this is a life lived large and a life that affects every one of us.  But what he did -- to get back to your first question, what he did in transforming "Meet the Press" was extraordinary.

            And one other note because I think back to "Meet the Press" last Sunday.  There's one person who has made the biggest difference, other than Tim, in our political coverage this year, and that is our political director, Chuck Todd...

            OLBERMANN:  Indeed.

            MITCHELL:  ... who had never done television before.  And Tim brought him in, and Chuck has transformed the way we do business on the Internet, on cable, on broadcast and in this bureau.  And there is no more avid, you know, lover of politics other than Tim than Chuck, and no one who knows more.

            And if I had to think about Tim's legacy to all of us here at NBC News, aside from his family, his professional legacy are the young people, the Chris Donovans (ph) and the Betsy Fishers and the Barbara Fance (ph) who worked so closely with him.  And seeing there with Pat Moynihan and the saddest funeral at St. Matthews here, Pat Moynihan, seeing now McCain and Lieberman and some of the others who've talked about Tim already today, but the real legacy here are the young people who have learned so much from him and who also taught him things.  And Chuck Todd is at the top of that list.

            OLBERMANN:  And with us now, indeed, Andrea -- a proper instruction for Chuck Todd, I think, Andrea just supplied.  Chuck, this must be an overwhelming moment for you.  But the point of Andrea's point was, Tim saw it had worked for him and figured it could work for you.  And he would do everything he possibly could to make sure that was the case.

            CHUCK TODD, NBC POLITICAL DIRECTOR:  Well, I'm just thinking of this weekend and the fact that it's Father's Day on Sunday.

            OLBERMANN:  Yes.

            TODD;  I don't know of anybody that has made people appreciate their fathers and their relationships with their sons than Tim.  I mean, if there has to be a weekend where we have to mourn the loss of Tim, it's Father's Day.  And I mean -- my favorite little just moments with Tim are when he's asking about my boy, or he's asking about David's son, or he's telling a story about Luke, you know, or he's talking about his dad.  And you know, obviously, anybody with a son or a father -- and you know, you just -- Tim is just such a family guy.

            And that's what I think, you know, what Andrea was getting at here, and sort of I think the thing that all of us are so shaken right now is that he was sort of everybody's father figure here at the bureau.  And he was the cheerleader and he was the consoler.  And when you think about, you know, any of our colleagues that have had health problems or family members with health problems, story after story you hear, you know, God, Tim called me, like, six times to check in on my dad, or, Tim called me to check in on my mom, or you know, my child.

            And you know, it's sort of that stuff that you want -- I mean, I think there's no doubt the world knows what a great journalist he was.  But it's the -- it's that stuff that I think is why all of us are a little shaken right now, frankly.  It's the fact that he was -- he was our friend, he was our mentor, he was an idol to a lot of us, to me.  I can't tell you how many people I know that are just sitting there and they're just -- you know, they say, I want to be Tim Russert someday.

And it's -- it's -- it's a huge shock.

            OLBERMANN:  You mentioned everybody's dad.  The National Father's Day Committee had named him Father of the Year in 1995.  "Parents" magazine identified him as "the dream dad," how fitting, 1998 and 2001.

            TODD:  It's unbelievable...

            OLBERMANN:  It's unbelievable he didn't get the award every year, is what's unbelievable.

            TODD:  He -- you know, he got to see his son graduate college this year.  He was just with him this week.  You know, if you're in his office and you're talking work and you're talking business and Luke calls, everything drops.  Everything drops.  And it was never -- it was never -- there was never a doubt what the priority was.

            And what's great about that is that it instills the priority in you and everybody else here.  It was never -- you know, you hear about a lot of people in this business, in the news business, whether it's television or print, who sometimes you feel like, you know, you're not allowed to have a family.  That was not Tim.  If anything, he would lecture you if you weren't with your family enough.  You haven't spent the -- you know, take the night off.  Go be with your daughter.  Go be with your boy.  Go be with your family at home.

            And it's that legacy that I hope people get to know over the next few days because it's -- you know, obviously, he wrote that book and everybody sort of understands the relationship.  And I think he -- he transformed (ph) -- I mean, there was nothing he loved more -- if he would walk into an airport -- and it was amazing.  And I got to -- just the fact I got to cover this campaign with him, even for a couple of months, was unbelievable.

            But we'd be going to Iowa -- we'd be In Iowa, trudging through the snow this year, going to -- I remember we were going to some Bill Clinton event when nobody was covering Bill Clinton.  There were people

(INAUDIBLE) but it was -- a lot of people were -- didn't think it was such a cool thing to do.  And of course, the first thing Tim wanted to do is, I want to see Bubba, I want to see how he's campaigning.

            And more people would come up to him and talk about how that  book changed their relationship with their dad.  And that stuff -- forget being recognized.  That's the stuff you walk away -- and it's like he'd walk around sometimes with watery eyes half the time he was in a public place because so many people would talk to him about that book and what it did to sort of change -- whatever it touched people personally about their relationship with their fathers.

            OLBERMANN:  To have touched so many lives in ways that you couldn't possibly expect, one of the great gifts for Tim Russert and from him to the rest of us.  Chuck, stand by.  I want to read because while we have been talking here, literally, there's a stack of statements from public figures great and small and from people in politics and from people in television.  And some of them are in senses, strong senses, heartbreaking.  There's also an interview that -- a brief statement John McCain has given on tape to our Kelly O'Donnell, which we'll play in a moment.  But I must read you this.

            This is from Mayor Byron W. Brown (ph) of Buffalo, New York.  "On behalf of the residents of Buffalo," he says, "I express our shared sadness and shock at the news of Tim Russert's death.  But more than his professional accomplishments, Tim Russert cherished his family, friends and his hometown.  He never forgot his roots in south Buffalo and he often reminded his television audience and guests of his strong affection for Buffalo, particularly his beloved Buffalo Bills.  He was truly our city's greatest ambassador and he was loved by everyone in Buffalo and western New York."

            If you've ever been there, you know how strong and how on the sleeve that love is.  There are many people who resemble, in that sense, Tim Russert.  One thing that the mayor did that he says at the end of this statement that will take your breath from you.  "To honor Tim Russert's memory, I have ordered that all flags on city property be lowered immediately to half-staff."  For a civilian, for a man who never held elected office, such an honor and so well deserved for Tim Russert from Buffalo.

            George Stephanopoulos, whose show on ABC, "This Week," competes -- competed with "Meet the Press" and Tim Russert.  "Tim loved everything about politics and journalism because he believed in it.  Every Sunday morning, he brought the passion to the table and made all of us better.

  My thoughts and prayers are with his family, especially Maureen, Luke, and his father, Russ," a gracious statement from George Stephanopoulos, who was one of Tim's rivals in that field.

            Bob Schieffer of CBS News, a venerable figure in broadcasting, and in many senses, a Russert-like figure for those at CBS, the anchor of "Face the Nation," CBS's Sunday morning political show.  "Tim was the best of our profession.  He asked the best questions and then he li