Let us um bring our uh our viewers to Gwen.

I just want you to watch this uh which just brief compilation of Gwen in many different settings.

I've been overwhelmed by the good wishes sent my way as I move to the head of our little table here at Washington Week.

Welcome to the first and the only 2008 vice presidential debate.

Good evening and welcome to Elcart, Indiana, as we sit down with President Obama.

I'm here in St.

Petersburg, Florida.

We are here in Postdebate Milwaukee.

Hello and welcome to Philadelphia.

Join us every Friday night.

We'll always have a lot to say and we'll always want to hear what you have to say as well.

One thing we didn't have there, Michelle, was Gwen with a broken ankle still doing national debates.

But um give us the give us the framing here.

I mean, you were very very close to to Gwen.

What did she bring to national journalism that we didn't really have before her rise?

Well, it's easy to say that, you know, she was an African-American woman, so she brought a level of diversity into every room that she entered.

But she was our standard bearer, and she had this she was a compass.

She was a walking exclamation point and a walking compass.

She was the the person who would call you, and I think all of us have received those calls.

Step away from the keyboard.

She was the person who pushed you to find your best self as journalists.

And she cared about journalism.

She cared about the craft of journalism.

She called it a craft and she was a defender of journalism and she was also um a cultivator.

One of the things that I always appreciated is that she was always working with young people.

Yeah.

She made time.

There are a number of people who see themselves as mentees and accolades.

And if you traveled with her, as I often did, people would not approach her as a celebrity.

They would approach her as a friend.

And so for people who watch this show every night, for people who saw her on PBS or people who saw her on campaigns and in debates, she had something magical about her that she connected with people.

She was tough, but she was not a scold, right?

She was a standard bearer, but she was not like Tracy Flick.

She wasn't like wagging a finger at anyone.

She was beckoning you to find your best self.

I I want you to watch with me um a a moment from Gwen's funeral.

This is John Dickerson uh giving a eulogy at at the funeral.

I'm not going to say it in church, but there's a very specific word for what Gwen could detect.

It is our greatest local crop in Washington.

John, talk talk about that quality of Gwen just not brooking any nonsense, including from those of us at the table.

I mean, when you or especially Yeah.

Well, I mean, what what I remember it happened many, many different times on the campaign trail or at an some administration gaggle with some official.

You know, there's a little bit of footsie that happens at the beginning of that, some joking around or whatever.

And Gwen had very little patience for that.

There were you were there to do business and often she would ask a question that not only punctured that little moment and got to the business of why we were there but sort of re reframed and made more serious that exchange with the administration official.

I I want you guys to watch one other um moment, a very famous moment from Gwen's life.

This is in 2004 when she's doing a vice presidential debate and it's a Dick Cheney and John Edwards.

Um, and she asks what has become a very very famous question.

The sort of question that had not been asked in in previous debates.

Watch this with me because I want I want to talk about this.

I want to talk to you about AIDS and not about AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country where black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts.

What should the government's role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?

Let me um turn this on its head because when we talk about race in this country, we always talk about African-Americans, people of color.

I want to talk to you about white people.

Okay.

White people.

Well, I know that was a moment in 2016 when Gwen, I think, was winking at all of us and saying, "You know what?

I'm gonna I'm gonna make Bernie Sanders a little bit uncomfortable for a minute."

Um, and he tried to diffuse it with humor and she like plowed right ahead.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Talk talk about that that moment.

That was an interesting example.

Uh, this is a question for both of you.

Interesting example of of diversity in the truest most substantive sense.

It's like bring in people with different backgrounds, different experiences.

They're going to have different kinds of questions.

I I love that you included both of them because in the first, you know, that Dick Cheney and John Edwards were briefed to the high heavens and they were not ready for that question, right?

There was no way that they were ready for that question.

And so she was bringing she was bringing people along with her.

She was bringing black women into that debate along with her and saying, "You deserve to be a part of this conversation."

On the other hand, she was also saying, you know, when we talk about race, white Americans too often get to be spectators.

And so, if we're actually going to talk about race, let's have a full conversation and let's make sure.

And I neither Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders are probably prepared for that question either.

Gwen had a worldview and that worldview was not swayed or affected by the shiny thing of the moment or the hottake of the moment.

And that is what we all admired is that set of standards.

Talk about standards, John.

I I I mean like she would ask the relevant question, the pointed question, and persistently insist on getting an answer, but she did it in a way that wasn't like unnecessarily adversarial.

I mean, you still really liked Gwen Ifill, I think, even when she was asking you, you know, the smile was incredibly famous and and and incandescent, but there was no nonsense.

No nonsense at all.

What lesson do you when you look at her career and the way she when the way she led herself in public, what lesson do you as someone in the business take from the way she did things?

You know, first of all, I I first got to know her in 1999, 198 1998, 1999 when I was covering the impeachment of Bill Clinton and so was she for for the Today Show.

And I had to be the I was there.

I spent my life up on Capitol Hill during during those months.

And so did Gwen.

I never saw anybody more hardworking.

I often had the second car in the little parking area on East Capitol Street where journalists could could park back then.

The first car was Gwen's or I would have the first, she would have the second.

We were always the first to arrive and I got to and we we were covering this historic event and I just those moments in in the morning getting her kind of like cutting through the the the BS.

Yes, this is a big historic moment and it's also like what are we really doing here?

You know, the thing I think about is the word anchor.

Mhm.

We use that word all the time, but we forget what it really means.

It keeps you on track.

Yeah.

It's that thing that that actually keeps you on track.

And and you know, a lot of anchors don't necessarily do that.

We're glad that you do, but but not Well, I think Gwen would think I tell too many jokes on this on this show.

She would she would No, I hear her.

Believe me, I hear her.

As quick a laugh as Gwen had and that gorgeous smile when you if one cracked a joke at the table, she would not smile.

because she didn't believe that that was the role or that her viewers uh you know that was not uh that she it was very No, no, no.

I I would make twice the number of jokes if I didn't have Gwen in my head right now.

The first the first person in my life I've it's a grace to work with somebody who makes you want to be so much m better than you can who lifts your game and she was the first I experienced that.

Speaking of jokes, um Gwen was also a an international icon.

She was a celebrity.

She managed it well.

But I want you to watch these couple of moments.

The first is from Queen Latifah.

And the second is from Will Ferrell when he's getting the Mark Twain Prize a number of years ago.

Good evening.

I'm Gwen Ifill Welcome to Washington University in St.

Louis, Missouri to the first and only 2008 vice presidential debate.

I mean, tonight if I after the show, if I want to go on a bender with Gwen Ifill.

and uh buy a couple spear guns and try to scale the Washington Monument, I'm going to do it.

Okay.

I don't know that she she would do all that, but she might have a sip of brown liquor with him at the end of the night.

She loved the Queen Latifah bit and it actually came at a moment that really she had broken her ankle and so when she did that that debate um she was hobbling on one foot and she was really she would did it without any painkillers because she wanted to be totally present.

So when that happened it was really something that was very very special to her.

And the thing that that you didn't show though the thing that really got to her is when little girls would come to the door on Halloween cuz she was big on Halloween.

She loved kids and they would come to the door dressed as Gwen Ifill.

And so as much as she loved Queen Latifah, she loved that she was having this effect on the neck.

That is a that's a that's an amazing story.

Well, she was um she was singular.

We all know that.

And um I think I speak for this panel when I say that uh we all miss her very much.

I'm sure you at home also miss her very much.

We are going to have to leave it there.

I'm I'm glad that we had the time to talk about Gwen Ifill and her legacy.

She won't be forgotten.

Uh we loved her here.

We loved her everywhere and we all miss her very very much.

Uh I want to thank our guests for joining me for this very very moving conversation.

I want to thank you at home for watching us.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg borrowing Gwen Ifill's seat.

Good night from Washington.