> In an exclusive interview with Brian Williams airing tonight at 10pm/9c on NBC’s “Rock Center,” Apple CEO Tim Cook announced one of the existing Mac lines will be manufactured exclusively in the United States next year. Mac fans will have to wait to see which Mac line it will be because Apple, widely known for its secrecy, left it vague. Cook’s announcement may or may not confirm recent rumors in the blogosphere sparked by iMacs inscribed in the back with “Assembled in USA.”

Huge news. Apple has been under pressure to bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA for several years, especially after a series of reports about the working conditions at subcontractors’ factories in China. Businesses that will invest in manufacturing plants may also need to shoulder the costs of purchasing tools and machinery such as steam generator equipment and robotics.

During his first term, President Obama had met with Steve Jobs, and Jobs offered that Apple “could move more manufacturing here” if U.S. education produced more skilled engineers.

Cook agrees with his predecessor’s opinion about the state of U.S. education, but said, “The consumer electronics world was really never here. It’s a matter of starting it here.”

And to the pundits who have repeatedly asked what Steve Jobs would do if he were still with us?

“And one of the things he did for me, that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed, is he told me, on a couple of occasions before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never ask the question, ‘What Steve would do,’ to just do what’s right.”