George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan remembered Thea Trachtenberg on Monday.
The Good Morning America team is remembering their late colleague. On Monday's episode of the morning show, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan paid tribute to Thea Trachtenberg, a longtime GMA producer who died on Sunday.
While introducing a video package that documented Trachtenberg's career, Stephanopoulos praised her as being "a force on this show," who was a mentor to "so many on our staff," and had a "biting wit, a skeptical eye and a very big heart."
In the video tribute, Stephanopoulos recalled Trachtenberg's work on interviews with presidents, prime ministers and actors, before revealing that "the interview she loved the most was Bono."
"She was also a mentor to so many on our staff," he said. "... Thea Trachtenberg was a force, as a producer, as a colleague, as a human being. She'll be very missed."
Once the video ended, Stephanopoulos continued his tribute with a couple of fond memories of the late producer.
"Such an amazing human being, such an amazing producer. I worked with Thea on all of my big shoots. She did love that Bono one most of all," he said. "She would come up to me just about every week and say, 'When are we going to do Bono again? When are we going to do Bono again?'"
"Not only was she was so much fun to work with, but she was just such an incredibly competent, intelligent and fearless producer," he continued. "One other moment I remember, I was in the Oval Office, actually interviewing President Obama, big exit interview with President Obama... He always liked to be very conscious of how much time we had. As we were sitting down he said, 'We have 30 minutes, right, George?' Before I could say a word, Thea jumped in and said, 'Mr. President, you promised 45.'"
"That was Thea in a nutshell," Roberts commented. "She was also a great poet. Remember those Christmas poems she'd send out every year?... [For] the first interview with [Michelle Obama] as first lady I said, 'I want Thea by my side.'"
Strahan also had kind words for Trachtenberg, saying that as a "producer, she had thought-provoking questions, insightful questions."
"All the younger producers, they wanted to be like Thea. That was their thing. She took you under her wing," he said. "Thea will continue to live on through all of those that she has helped and she has guided through their careers. She will be missed here at GMA. There's nothing but love here for her and her family. Without a doubt."
As the tribute came to an end, Roberts began tearing up and said, "Her fellow colleagues, they really, really loved her. That's what we should remember about Thea. Boy, she had a big heart!"
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