Politics
Robert MacNeil, the stately journalist who brought news to PBS, dies at 93
Robert MacNeil, whose coverage of the Watergate scandal led to the first nightly newscast for PBS, died Friday in Manhattan after a long illness. He was 93.
A PBS representative confirmed MacNeil’s death.
MacNeil was the founding anchor of “PBS NewsHour,” which was first launched in 1975 as “The Robert MacNeil Report” and later renamed “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” In the years before cable news and the internet, the program was the lone national TV alternative to the newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC.
MacNeil was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Jan. 19, 1931, the son of a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He dropped out of Dalhousie University in Halifax to pursue an acting career and became an announcer for CBC.
After moving to England in 1955, he turned to journalism, joining the news service Reuters. Five years later he became a London correspondent for NBC News.
MacNeil was transferred to NBC’s Washington bureau in 1963 during the Kennedy administration and reported extensively from Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was killed by an assassin. Viewers who watched NBC News on Nov. 22, 1963, heard MacNeil call in from a phone booth to confirm the president’s death.
MacNeil became an anchor at NBC News and on the network’s local New York station, WNBC.
NBC News’ Washington correspondent Robert MacNeil in 1963.
(NBC/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
MacNeil was hired by PBS in 1971 to be the host its first public affairs program, “Washington Week in Review.” The service planned to team him with another former NBC News journalist, Sander Vanocur, to cover the 1972 presidential campaign.
But PBS plans to get into the news business met resistance from President Nixon’s administration. Nixon objected to the hiring of Vanocur, who was known to be close to Kennedy, who defeated him in the 1960 presidential race.
MacNeil believed the opposition was driven by Nixon’s general disdain for the media.
“I think it was primarily the fear of a fourth, as he saw it, ‘liberal’ network,” MacNeil said in a 2020 interview with The Times.
Vanocur didn’t take the job, and MacNeil was eventually teamed with Jim Lehrer, a former Dallas newspaper reporter who worked behind the scenes at PBS. They ended up providing coverage of the Senate hearings on Watergate.
The coverage made the pair TV news stars.
The commercial networks were hesitant to preempt their game shows and soap operas to present the hearings. They rotated in providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.
But for noncommercial PBS, the hearings were a major opportunity. For 47 days and nights in 1973, the service covered every minute of the proceedings. They were repeated in prime time for viewers who missed the ongoing daytime saga in the era before DVRs and streaming.
Viewers enjoyed the dignified combination of MacNeil, who spoke in a clipped, erudite manner; and Lehrer, a Kansas native with a soft heartland drawl. Off-camera they became close friends and business partners. (Lehrer died in 2020).
Their Watergate coverage brought PBS big ratings. Financial contributions from viewers poured in.
A year after the hearings, MacNeil was given his own nightly half-hour program, produced out of the studios of PBS New York flagship WNET. Lehrer reported from Washington, D.C., and his name was added to the program title in 1976 when it was offered to stations nationally.
In 1983, the program was renamed “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and became a signature series for PBS that still airs today as “PBS NewsHour.”
The anchor duo entered a unique arrangement when they formed a production company and became owners of the program in the mid-1980s. They produced the “PBS NewsHour” until 2014, when it was taken over by the service’s Washington station WETA.
“The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” never deviated from its mandate to provide a more subdued and serious approach to covering the news of the day. When the trial of O.J. Simpson became a dominant TV news story in the mid-1990s, the “NewsHour” devoted scant attention to it outside the verdict.
After leaving the program, MacNeil continued to produce and host documentaries for PBS. He also wrote several books.
“He was brilliant and urbane, but always with a delightful sense of irony,” said Judy Woodruff, who later served as a “PBS NewsHour” anchor. “I’m so grateful to have spoken with him in January on his birthday, when that iconic, deep Canadian baritone voice sounded exactly as it had when he last anchored the ‘NewsHour’ almost 30 years ago.”
MacNeil is survived by two children from his first marriage, Ian and Cathy MacNeil; two children from his second marriage, Alison and Will MacNeil; and five grandchildren.
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Top Trump administration officials, Republican lawmakers and prominent Christian leaders gathered on the National Mall on Sunday for a massive prayer rally celebrating America’s upcoming 250th anniversary.
The event — “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” — drew thousands for worship music, speeches and prayers focused on reaffirming the United States as “One Nation Under God.”
President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and House Speaker Mike Johnson all addressed the gathering, alongside numerous other political and faith figures.
In a prerecorded message, Trump read from 2 Chronicles 7, reciting the well-known Bible verse calling on people to “humble themselves” and seek God.
TRUMP CALLS ON AMERICANS TO PRAY FOR NATION AS 250TH BIRTHDAY APPROACHES: ‘ONE NATION UNDER GOD’
Attendees watch a pre-recorded video of President Donald Trump reading from the Bible during “Rededicate 250” on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on May 17, 2026. (Matthew Hatcher / AFP via Getty Images)
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land,” Trump said.
Vance described the United States as “a nation of prayer,” saying faith has shaped the country since before its founding.
“In times of suffering and in times of triumph, millions of Americans continue to turn to prayer and their faith in God,” Vance said.
Rubio similarly tied America’s identity to Christianity.
“From the beginning, we have carried the belief that our country represents something new in the world,” Rubio said. “But the soul of our nation has always been rooted in an ancient faith.”
Gabbard urged Americans to humble themselves before God, saying the nation’s founders “knelt” and “asked for God’s mercy” before declaring independence.
FOR 2026, YOU SHOULD MAKE A RESOLUTION TO KNOW THE REVOLUTION
Johnson delivered a prayer of “rededication,” thanking God for guiding the nation since its founding.
“Heavenly Father, we thank you,” Johnson said. “Thank you so much for this great day that you’ve given us here, and we remember that your mighty hand has been upon our nation since the very beginning.”
Hegseth referenced George Washington’s faith, while Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., spoke about Christianity’s role in shaping the nation and argued prayer was central to the Civil Rights Movement.
Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., praised Trump for encouraging Americans to “rededicate America to God.”
“This nation was founded on godly principles,” Alveda King told Fox News, adding that Martin Luther King Jr., “spoke to a crowd like this in 1963.”
Actor Jonathan Roumie, who portrays Jesus in “The Chosen,” also spoke at the event, encouraging Americans to recommit themselves to faith and prayer.
NEARLY 500 PUBLIC FIGURES FROM POLITICS TO HOLLYWOOD WILL READ BIBLE COVER TO COVER TO MARK AMERICA’S 250TH
House Speaker Mike Johnson delivers a prayer during “Rededicate 250” on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on May 17, 2026. (Matthew Hatcher/AFP)
The event also featured appearances from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Bishop Robert Barron, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, evangelist Franklin Graham, along with performances from Grammy-winning Christian artist Chris Tomlin, among others.
Many attendees wore patriotic colors as they packed the National Mall.
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Freedom 250, the nonprofit behind the event, said the gathering is part of a broader effort leading up to America’s semiquincentennial celebration on July 4, 2026.
Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
HONG KONG — As President Trump left Beijing on Friday, Chinese social media resurfaced a familiar nickname for the president — flattering at first glance — declaring that Chuan Jianguo, the “Nation Builder,” had returned.
It was not meant as a compliment. The nation he is building, according to the Chinese, is not the United States but their own, through a series of inadvertent yet costly mistakes inflicted by Trump at home and abroad.
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If the Chinese government was self-assured entering Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping, then the results of the state visit, in which Beijing refused to offer Trump any meaningful deals or concessions, signal their unmistakable confidence in American decline.
Chinese government statements in local media stating as much made their way back to Trump as he was departing, aggravating the president, a U.S. official said. But the White House secured a clarification from the Chinese that seemed to placate Trump. America was only declining under President Biden, they said — not anymore.
President Trump and President Xi Jinping tour Zhongnanhai Garden on Friday in Beijing.
(Evan Vucci / Pool via Getty Images)
The Trump administration argues the trip was a success, having secured the display of conciliation and partnership the president had sought after years of increasingly dangerous acrimony.
Foreign policy hawks on China will be displeased with his new direction of friendship and cooperation with a government they view as openly hostile to the United States. But Trump seems to have reached a similar conclusion as past administrations, that China might require a relationship in pursuit of, as Xi put it, “constructive strategic stability.”
Trump was notably out of character throughout his stay here, deferential to his host, marveling at displays of Chinese power and reticent to speak with the press.
Five times over two days, Trump referred to Xi as his friend, taking every public opportunity to offer his compliments and pats on the back. None of it was reciprocated. The Chinese leader, Trump told Fox News in an interview, was “all business” in private, as well, apparently uninterested in his overtures of personal goodwill.
Presidents Xi and Trump tour Zhongnanhai Garden on Friday.
(Evan Vucci—Pool/Getty Images)
The summit may ultimately be remembered as the moment when Trump recognized a shifting power dynamic, where an American president had the rare and uncomfortable experience of entering a meeting clearly overmatched.
“I think the most important thing is relationship,” Trump said in the interview, describing the summit as “historic.”
“It’s all about relationship,” he added. “I have a very good relationship with President Xi.”
Taiwan was discussed ‘the whole night’
Little of substance was accomplished over two days of talks. But Chinese officials expected no less after warning Trump’s team before the summit that its minimal preparation had failed to lay the groundwork for diplomatic agreements.
Still, the lack of breakthroughs may come as a relief to some in Washington. Trump appears to have held to a long-standing U.S. line on Taiwan, for now, refusing to provide Xi with clarity on whether the United States would defend the self-ruled island if China tries to reclaim it by force.
The two men discussed the matter “the whole night,” Trump told Fox.
If China attacked, “they would be met harshly, and bad things will happen,” Trump said. Yet within the same answer, he questioned Taiwan’s “odds” against China if war were to break out, even with U.S. help, noting its proximity to the Chinese mainland and its vast distance away from the United States.
Whether Trump will proceed with arms sales to Taiwan — passed by Congress and obligated by law under the Taiwan Relations Act — is still an open question.
“If you kept it the way it is, I think China is going to be OK with that,” Trump said, referencing an ambiguous status quo around Taiwan’s status, “but we’re not looking to have somebody say, ‘Let’s go independent because the United States is backing us.’ ”
“Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit,” he added. “China would be smart to cool it a little bit. They ought to both cool it.”
President Trump departs as President Xi looks on after a visit to Zhongnanhai Garden on Friday.
(Evan Vucci/ Pool via Getty Images)
Curious company
Trump’s choice of company in the U.S. delegation left the Chinese with questions over the purpose of the trip.
Lara Trump, a Fox News host and the president’s daughter-in-law, attended alongside her husband, Eric Trump, whose presence as a private citizen running the Trump Organization was a direct appeal to Beijing to treat the administration like a family business. Brett Ratner, director of the “Rush Hour” series and a documentary on the first lady that bombed at the box office, was given prime placement along with America’s top business leaders.
The last time a secretary of Defense attended a presidential state visit to China was on Richard Nixon’s famous trip in 1972. Chinese officials were unsure what to make of Pete Hegseth’s presence — whether it was meant to convey a softer stance, a hardening one, or simply an ignorance of basic diplomatic protocol.
Trump said he felt personally honored by the lavish welcome he received on the edge of Tiananmen Square, outside the Great Hall of the People, where China hosts all visiting dignitaries.
Before a lunch at Zhongnanhai, the secretive headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party, Trump asked Xi if he was special for getting to visit the compound. He was the fourth U.S. president to do so.
While the Trump administration offered itself glowing reviews of the outcome of the summit, the Chinese government offered little to say as he departed. And Chinese media highlighted Beijing’s resolute stance on American priorities — from trade to the Iran war — as evidence of Chinese confidence and American decline.
But all that business wasn’t the point of the trip, Trump told Fox’s Bret Baier. For the president, it was all personal.
“I want to thank President Xi, my friend, for this magnificent welcome,” Trump said in his toast at the state banquet, repeating the personal overture. “The American and Chinese people share much in common. We value hard work. We value courage and achievement. We love our families and we love our countries.
“Together, we have the chance to draw on these values to create a future of greater prosperity, cooperation and happiness and peace for our children,” Trump added. “We love our children. This region and the world — it’s a special world, with the two of us united and together.”
new video loaded: Cassidy Loses Primary After Drawing Trump’s Ire
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transcript
Cassidy Loses Primary After Drawing Trump’s Ire
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy lost his Louisiana primary on Saturday after President Trump targeted him for voting to impeach him in 2021. The two-term senator took veiled swipes at the president in his concession speech.
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Thank you, Louisiana! I want to say thank you to a very special man who you all know, the best president this country has ever had, President Donald Trump. I’ve been able to participate in democracy. And when you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. But you don’t pout. You don’t whine. You don’t claim the election was stolen. Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution. And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they are about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us.”
By Cynthia Silva
May 17, 2026
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