dpJuly 1, 2026, 8:02 a.m. ET
- ABC anchor David Muir climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty’s torch for a special report on America’s 250th birthday.
- The torch has been closed to the public since 1916, making Muir’s ascent a rare event.
- Muir, along with colleagues Diane Sawyer and Deborah Roberts, will also host specials from national parks like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.
David Muir has gone where very few people have gone before: the very top of the Statue of Liberty.
For ABC’s coverage of America’s 250th birthday, the “World News Tonight” anchor, 52, took a cameraman along as he climbed to the top of Lady Liberty’s torch, a very high and exclusive perch on the statue that stands over 300 feet in the air. The torch has been closed since 1916.
During an exclusive phone interview with USA TODAY, alongside ABC colleagues Diane Sawyer and Deborah Roberts, Muir recalls the climb, with the final stretch up a narrow 40-foot ladder to the torch – and the question he posed to the park ranger who was guiding him.
“How many people are allowed up here?” Muir recalls asking, to which the park ranger replied, “Nobody.”
“Climbing the ladder itself was more terrifying than standing up on the platform,” Muir says, noting he had an immediate response when his cameraman asked if he wanted to go up a second time to film it from a different angle. “You just hear the audio of me saying, ‘I’m not going back down.’ We’re not doing this twice.”
When asked if Muir needed a break during his 300-foot climb, Sawyer, 80, interrupts. “Have you met David Muir?” she quips, eliciting laughter from Muir and Roberts, 65. “Do you think he needed a break?”
Heights and physical challenges aside, Muir says the moment was a poignant one.
“Once you’re up there, you are just in complete awe of the beauty of New York Harbor,” he says, “and you immediately think of the people who came into the harbor on those ships and thought, ‘I’m getting a chance at a new life.'”
ABC marks America’s 250th birthday with 24-hour programming
As the nation prepares to celebrate its birthday, Muir, Roberts and Sawyer and many of their Disney colleagues set out to showcase the stories that have shaped our country.
The company is celebrating the moment with a full day of programming in conjunction with ABC, ABC News, ESPN and National Geographic. Muir will lead the coverage, which includes everything from the aforementioned feature at the Statue of Liberty on July 3 (also with Roberts and musical guest Brandi Carlile) to the annual July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island.
Muir, Roberts and Sawyer will also join other ABC colleagues in “7 Wonders of America” (July 4, 1-3 p.m. ET), providing a look at the country’s natural wonders and how they’ve shaped history. For the special, Muir went to the Grand Canyon and Redwoods National and State Park, while Roberts covered Yellowstone National Park and Sawyer traveled to the Appalachian Mountains.
Roberts, who co-anchors the long-running program “20/20” with Muir, calls her time in Yellowstone “a magical experience,” though the shoot came with its own set of challenges, including rain and unexpected delays.
“We have to stop and break for bison as we’re going along,” she recalls. “But that’s what that raw beauty was in this place… It’s hard to believe it was an assignment.”
“People didn’t really believe that this thing existed in the very beginning because of how wondrous it is,” Roberts adds. “For me, it was just awe-inspiring.”
As for Sawyer, the longtime anchor – who still contributes to ABC News after handing over the “World News Tonight” reins to Muir in 2014 – found the Appalachian mountains provided an “endless state of surprise.” The range, which covers 13 U.S. states and stretches into Canada, has been dubbed a “biodiversity highway,” due to the animals, plants, cuisine and preservation of original bluegrass and folk songs native to the region.
“It was an interesting tapestry of America and how it formed us and formed our idea of who we are in a way,” Sawyer says, noting how settlers likely said, “If we make it across these mountains, then nothing stops us all the way to the Pacific.”
“I think one of the great joys [of this job] is when you can bring people something that doesn’t need words,” she adds.
The always-on journalist goes off the grid
While Muir is filled with gratitude that he and his colleagues were able to tell these stories from different parts of the country, he also jokes about an added benefit from some of their travels.
“First of all, our phones did not work, which was the real gift,” he jokes of his time in Redwoods. “But there was this moment when we were looking up at this tree in front of us and trying to assess how old it was. We realized that all of the trees around us are much older than the Declaration of Independence, much older than this country.”
“The steward of Save the Redwoods [an organization that protects and restores the forest] was standing there with me, and he said, ‘And you know what? They’ll be here hundreds of years after us,'” Muir continues.
Founding Fathers envisioned how to ‘hold power to account’
Other coverage throughout the day includes “GMA’s 50 States in 50 Weeks” (July 4, 1:07 a.m. ET) and Nashville’s Star-Spangled Bash (8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT), hosted by Ryan Seacrest. Muir will also helm “Dawn in America” (July 4, 5 a.m. ET), which traces American history through documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The First Amendment and freedom of the press have long been central to American democracy, but debates over media independence have intensified during the Trump administration, especially as changes at CBS News and “60 Minutes” made headlines.
As part of his reporting, Muir saw the original, first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution in Philadelphia. He noticed “freedom of the press” written in the margin of the Constitution, which, of course, eventually became part of the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791.
“It was on [the founding fathers’] minds when they were envisioning the future of this country,” he says. “To see in the margin that they thought that one of those ways to hold power to account over our 250 years would be freedom of the press, to ask the questions and to be brave. They knew that from the very start.”
