Tim Russert’s chair was empty on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, two days after his unexpected death.
But Russert was very much present on the full-hour tribute to this giant of political journalism who hosted NBC’s public-affairs program for more than 16 years.
“His voice has been stilled,” began Tom Brokaw, who led the conversation, “and our issue this sad Sunday morning is remembering and honoring our colleague and our friend ….”
Brokaw and a half-dozen others were seated in front of the “Meet the Press” set and its angular table, left vacant, where Russert had presided as recently as last week.
Brokaw noted that Russert had a large wooden sign in his office that read: “Thou Shalt Not Whine,” which Brokaw then supplemented with “Thou shalt not weep or cry this morning. This is a celebration.”
But a bit later he choked up, recalling Russert’s words of awe at how far a working-class kid from Buffalo like himself could rise: “What a country!” he would marvel.
Among those gathered were presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and political pundit Mary Matalin, with Maria Shriver – the former NBC News correspondent and currently California’s first lady – on a remote hookup.
All agreed that Russert was tough but fair in his interviewing, and that he, as a former political operative himself, loved politics and politicians.
What he didn’t like, said consultant-pundit James Carville, was an elected official or anybody else who wasn’t prepared to face him.
“The biggest insult to him was someone who came on and … didn’t take the show seriously,” Carville said.
It was a mistake they quickly regretted, because Russert took his stewardship of “Meet the Press” as a sacred trust.
“He would spend all week preparing,” said executive producer Betsy Fischer.
PBS’ Gwen Ifill, a former NBC correspondent, called the program “The Church of Tim.”
“I would actually get a pass from my own pastor to not be in church on Sunday if I was gonna be on `Meet the Press,’” she said with a smile.
MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle added that Russert’s son, Luke, had told him the day before that the program was “Tim’s second son.”
However fitting Sunday’s tribute, it was a cruel irony that Russert had become the big story, particularly in the midst of a like-no-other presidential race that he was covering with his customary gusto. Guests he had planned to grill Sunday were senior officials from both campaigns.
All that changed with Russert’s death from a heart attack Friday. He was stricken while preparing for the broadcast at his network’s Washington bureau.
NBC aired a prime-time tribute Friday night, then devoted Saturday’s “Today” show to his life and career. His passing dominated rival cable-news networks and news-talk shows.
St. Albans School in Washington said a wake was scheduled there Tuesday evening.
Wednesday at 4 p.m. EDT, a private memorial service from Washington’s Kennedy Center will be televised by MSNBC and made available for airing by other outlets, the network said.
Russert was the face of political news for NBC as well as cable sibling MSNBC, serving as chief political analyst, a frequent correspondent and an election-night fixture, besides his off-camera duties as NBC News’ Washington bureau chief.
He had become almost synonymous with the top-rated “Meet the Press,” the TV institution he reinvented while becoming an institution himself. He had been its host since 1991 when the show, the longest-running on television, already was in its 45th year.
Several tape montages on Sunday’s tribute displayed Russert in action, pressing subjects from Ross Perot to Louis Farrakhan. Politicos including John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton were seen telling Russert they had no interest in running for the White House.
The abrupt void Russert leaves is unprecedented in network TV news. Even the tragic death of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings in 2005 followed his much-publicized battle with lung cancer and his four-month absence from the airwaves.
There was no immediate word on who would host “Meet the Press” next week, or in the weeks after that.
Drawing the program to a close, Brokaw observed “this would not have been just another Sunday for Tim: This is Father’s Day.” Any regular viewer of “Meet the Press” knew Russert was a devoted son (of “Big Russ,” about whom he wrote in a best-selling memoir) and father (to Luke).
But the final moments – eerily yet aptly – were of Russert signing off from his host’s chair, proud and cheery, with Father’s Day greetings to all. For an instant, viewers might have wondered: Who will Russert be grilling next week?
The plans were set. Sunday morning, Father’s Day, Tim Russert would finish taping his NBC show Meet the Press and fly from Washington, D.C., to his hometown of Buffalo, N.Y.
His sister Kathleen Russert-Hughes, 52, would pick Tim up and the pair would spend the day with their dad, Timothy J. Russert, Sr., fondly known as Big Russ. “We were going to take him out to eat, drive around, whatever he wanted to do,” Kathleen tells PEOPLE. “We were going to spend the time with my dad.”
Timmy, as she calls him, always spent Father’s Day with Big Russ, to whom he paid tribute in his 2004 memoir Big Russ & Me. He would either fly to Buffalo or fly Big Russ down to Washington, D.C.
“His family was the most important thing in the world,” Kathleen says. “And he always had time for family.” Kathleen declined to elaborate on how Big Russ is doing after the sudden death of his son from a heart attack on June 13 except to say: “My dad is doing fine.”
“Timmy Loved Life, He Loved People”
Kathleen and Tim had recently struggled with the painful decision of helping Big Russ move from his small, neat Buffalo home with the NBC peacock on the front door into an assisted living facility on June 6. “It was very difficult,” says Kathleen. “It weighed heavy on Tim.”
Kathleen last spoke to Tim on Thursday. “He was checking on my dad,” she says, noting that Tim spoke to Big Russ at least every other morning, sometimes once a day. “Timmy loved life, he loved people,” she says. “I was very proud to be his sister, it’s such a tremendous loss.”
When asked what she will miss most about Tim, Kathleen begins to cry. “He was always there for me,” she says. “No matter how busy he was he would always take our calls or call us – family is number one.”
Luke, Russert’s son, had been spending time with Tim on a family vacation in Italy, and would still have been overseas on Father’s Day. Kathleen hasn’t yet spoken to Luke, a recent graduate of Boston College.
“Tim was a great dad, they were the closest a father could be to a son, a bond as strong as I’ve ever seen,” she says. “The love was unimaginable from the day he was born.”
Tim Russert: His Sudden Death Explained
TV news star Tim Russert’s abrupt collapse at the NBC News studio in Washington, D.C., Friday came as a shock – even to his doctor.
In a statement detailing autopsy results, Dr. Michael Newman said his famous patient had passed a stress test on April 29 and had even worked out on a treadmill the morning of his death.
“Russert, age 58, was known to have asymptomatic coronary artery disease (atherosclerosis), which resulted in hardening of his coronary arteries,” Newman said. “The autopsy revealed an enlarged heart and significant atherosclerosis of the left anterior descending coronary artery with (a) fresh clot which caused a heart attack resulting in a fatal ventricular arrhythmia.”
Russert’s stress test on April 29 was “normal,” Newman said. “At a high level of exercise he had no symptoms,” Newman said, adding that his blood pressure and cholesterol were “well-controlled.”
The newsman collapsed while preparing for his show Meet the Press Friday afternoon. Resuscitation attempts began immediately and after the Washington, D.C., paramedics arrived on the scene a full code was initiated, he said. He was taken to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., where resuscitation efforts continued to no avail. Studies show that survival is only 4 to 5 percent with sudden cardiac arrest, even with immediate medical attention like Russert had, Newman noted.
His Final Morning
Dr. Cyril Wecht, a nationally renowned forensic pathologist, said Newman’s description of why Russert died makes sense. “The left anterior descending artery is well known among pathologists as the widow-maker,” he tells PEOPLE. “That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? It’s a classical situation that one encounters with great frequency in sudden unexpected death where you get a blood clot, or a thrombosis, or bleeding and if he had an enlarged heart, that adds to it.”
Clots can be caused by any number of things, he said. “Sometimes it’s associated with stress and exertion, physical and/or emotional,” he said. “Was he flying a long time? Was he tired? People shoveling snow in the wintertime can get them. People working excessively hard. Or people under great physical and/or emotional stress and that can include flying.”
Russert had flown in from Italy late Thursday night, where he’d been celebrating his son Luke’s recent graduation from Boston College with his son and his wife, Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth.
CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood and Gerald Seib, his co-author on the new book, Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power, had seen Russert the morning he died. They were with Russert to tape an hour-long discussion of their new book for his CNBC cable show, The Tim Russert Program.
“We walked out of the taping around 10:15 and Gerry said, ‘You know, I don’t think Tim felt very well,’ ” Harwood tells PEOPLE. “I knew he was tired because he had flown in from Rome the night before, but I didn’t think much of it.”
Wecht said only one thing does not make sense to him – Newman’s claim that Russert passed the stress test on April 29 and that he could have passed one an hour before his death. “This hardening of the arteries is something that builds up over a period of years,” said Wecht. “So he wouldn’t be able to continue the stress test. He’d get short of breath.”
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