By — News Desk News Desk By — Nicole Ellis Nicole Ellis Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/watch-live-madeleine-albrights-funeral-at-the-washington-national-cathedral Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter WATCH: Madeleine Albright’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral Nation Apr 26, 2022 1:04 PM EDT World leaders and U.S. political and foreign policy elite paid their respects Wednesday to the late Madeleine Albright, the child refugee from war-torn Europe who rose to become America’s first female secretary of state. Led by President Joe Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, the man who picked Albright to be his top diplomat and the highest-ranking woman ever in the U.S. government at that time, some 1,400 mourners gathered to celebrate her life and accomplishments at Washington National Cathedral. Albright died of cancer last month at age 84, prompting an outpouring of condolences from around the world that also hailed her support for democracy and human rights. Besides the current and former presidents, the service was attended by at least three of her successors as secretary of state along with other current and former Cabinet members, foreign diplomats, lawmakers and an array of others who knew her. Albright’s funeral will begin at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday. The PBS NewsHour’s Nicole Ellis will host a series of conversations exploring Albright’s legacy ahead of the NewsHour’s live coverage of her funeral. Watch a conversation hosted by the PBS NewsHour’s Nicole Ellis followed by the full funeral ceremony in the player above. Biden, who delivered a tribute to Albright, said her name was synonymous with the idea that America is “a force for good in the world.” “In the 20th and 21st century, freedom had no greater champion than Madeleine Korbel Albright,” Biden said. “Today we honor a truly proud American who made all of us prouder to be Americans.” Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also were scheduled to deliver tributes at the service, while the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and former secretaries Condoleezza Rice and John Kerry were slated to attend. Other top current officials expected to be present included Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, CIA Director Bill Burns, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Mark Milley and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The members of the VIP audience were masked, as Albright’s family had requested. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Email Address Subscribe Form error message goes here. Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm. Foreign dignitaries invited to the funeral included the presidents of Georgia and Kosovo and senior officials from Colombia, Bosnia and the Czech Republic. Albright was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, but her family fled twice, first from the Nazis and then from Soviet rule. They ended up in the United States, where she studied at Wellesley College and rose through the ranks of Democratic Party foreign policy circles to become ambassador to the United Nations. Bill Clinton selected her as secretary of state in 1996 for his second term. READ MORE: Remembering the life and legacy of Madeleine Albright Although never in line for the presidency because of her foreign birth, Albright was near universally admired for breaking a glass ceiling, even by her political detractors. By — News Desk News Desk By — Nicole Ellis Nicole Ellis Nicole Ellis is PBS NewsHour's digital anchor where she hosts pre- and post-shows and breaking news live streams on digital platforms and serves as a correspondent for the nightly broadcast. Ellis joined the NewsHour from The Washington Post, where she was an Emmy nominated on-air reporter and anchor covering social issues and breaking news. In this role, she hosted, produced, and directed original documentaries and breaking news videos for The Post’s website, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Facebook and Twitch, earning a National Outstanding Breaking News Emmy Nomination for her coverage of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Ellis created and hosted The Post’s first original documentary series, “Should I freeze my eggs?,” in which she explores her own fertility and received the 2019 Digiday Publishers Award. She also created and hosted the Webby Award-winning news literacy series “The New Normal,” the most viewed video series in the history of The Washington Post’s women’s vertical, The Lily. She is the author of “We Go High,” a non-fiction self-help-by-proxy book on overcoming adversity publishing in 2022, and host of Critical Conversations on BookClub, an author-led book club platform. Prior to that, Ellis was a part of the production team for the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series, CNN Heroes. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Human Rights from Columbia University, as well as a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia Journalism School.
World leaders and U.S. political and foreign policy elite paid their respects Wednesday to the late Madeleine Albright, the child refugee from war-torn Europe who rose to become America’s first female secretary of state. Led by President Joe Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, the man who picked Albright to be his top diplomat and the highest-ranking woman ever in the U.S. government at that time, some 1,400 mourners gathered to celebrate her life and accomplishments at Washington National Cathedral. Albright died of cancer last month at age 84, prompting an outpouring of condolences from around the world that also hailed her support for democracy and human rights. Besides the current and former presidents, the service was attended by at least three of her successors as secretary of state along with other current and former Cabinet members, foreign diplomats, lawmakers and an array of others who knew her. Albright’s funeral will begin at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday. The PBS NewsHour’s Nicole Ellis will host a series of conversations exploring Albright’s legacy ahead of the NewsHour’s live coverage of her funeral. Watch a conversation hosted by the PBS NewsHour’s Nicole Ellis followed by the full funeral ceremony in the player above. Biden, who delivered a tribute to Albright, said her name was synonymous with the idea that America is “a force for good in the world.” “In the 20th and 21st century, freedom had no greater champion than Madeleine Korbel Albright,” Biden said. “Today we honor a truly proud American who made all of us prouder to be Americans.” Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also were scheduled to deliver tributes at the service, while the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and former secretaries Condoleezza Rice and John Kerry were slated to attend. Other top current officials expected to be present included Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, CIA Director Bill Burns, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Mark Milley and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The members of the VIP audience were masked, as Albright’s family had requested. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Email Address Subscribe Form error message goes here. Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm. Foreign dignitaries invited to the funeral included the presidents of Georgia and Kosovo and senior officials from Colombia, Bosnia and the Czech Republic. Albright was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, but her family fled twice, first from the Nazis and then from Soviet rule. They ended up in the United States, where she studied at Wellesley College and rose through the ranks of Democratic Party foreign policy circles to become ambassador to the United Nations. Bill Clinton selected her as secretary of state in 1996 for his second term. READ MORE: Remembering the life and legacy of Madeleine Albright Although never in line for the presidency because of her foreign birth, Albright was near universally admired for breaking a glass ceiling, even by her political detractors.