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All Episodes Talk: TRMS 2023 - 2024 Season

tessaray

By tessaray
in The Rachel Maddow Show

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tessaray

tessaray

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Monday's episode felt like old-school Rachel. I especially appreciated the ending of the story of the 1952  Canadian nuclear reactor meltdown. I would watch that movie, though I'm not sure who would play the lead.

Putting history in spoilers isn't necessary but since I enjoyed the reveal...

Spoiler

The hero of the response was an American naval officer experienced in nuclear submarines. Jimmy Carter.

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ahisma

ahisma

6 hours ago, tessaray said:

I especially appreciated the ending of the story of the 1950s (40s?) Canadian nuclear reactor meltdown.

Yes, same! I had never heard of that nuclear accident before, so great story on its own. The surprise? Amazingly touching.

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DanaK

DanaK

The Monday show’s interview with one of the prosecutors on the team that was prosecuting Vice President Agnew for his bribery was pretty fascinating. I didn’t previously know the nitty gritty details on the prosecution of Agnew, especially the details of why the prosecution was intent on getting Agnew to resign (they were worried about Nixon resigning because of Watergate and then the indicted or convicted Agnew would be president) in exchange for having him plead guilty to one count of tax evasion. His response to the question of whether the prosecutors for Trump’s documents case would be open to demanding Trump never seek political office again in exchange for no jail time or something like that was that he didn’t think they would consider that as it would make the prosecution look political, which makes sense

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ahisma

ahisma

14 hours ago, DanaK said:

I didn’t previously know the nitty gritty details on the prosecution of Agnew

I highly recommend Rachel’s Bag Man podcast! It goes deeper into those Baltimore prosecutors and the whole story.

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shok

shok

What a wonderful, ironic coup to have Hilary Clinton on the night Trump is being indicted for the fourth time. Seemed perfectly apropos except for being so sad to think we could have had that brilliant woman as our president, for EIGHT years, instead of the bloated blob who is threatening the country's democracy. I so enjoyed hearing two brilliant women talking with each other.

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DanaK

DanaK

On 8/15/2023 at 7:51 AM, shok said:

What a wonderful, ironic coup to have Hilary Clinton on the night Trump is being indicted for the fourth time. Seemed perfectly apropos except for being so sad to think we could have had that brilliant woman as our president, for EIGHT years, instead of the bloated blob who is threatening the country's democracy. I so enjoyed hearing two brilliant women talking with each other.

That was the bestest juxtaposition ever and a pretty good interview overall. But except for her smiling at the beginning of the interview because of the craziness that another indictment of Trump was about to go down, she indicated she wasn't gloating about it, that it was a sad day for the country

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Quilt Fairy

Quilt Fairy

(edited)
13 hours ago, DanaK said:

FYI, Cassidy Hutchinson, the Trump staffer who testified for the Jan 6 Committee, will be interviewed on Monday's show

And it sounds like, with parts of her book already leaked, it should be a good one. 

I'm sure Rachel probably has an advance copy and is attacking it with highlighters and post-it flags. 

Edited by Quilt Fairy
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ScoobieDoobs

ScoobieDoobs

Haven't watched Rach in forever cuz I never remember when she's on & I'm so not in the mood for this stuff on Mondays anyway.  Isn't this a typical Rachel move?  She has the author right there, but rather than spend the whole show interviewing her, she spends nearly a half hour talking about her book.

Sorry, Rach, but I got more from Cassidy's nine (or so) minutes on CBS Sunday Morning than this -- altho the stuff on Gaetz made me nauseous, so thanks for that!

I was more excited about Jen Psaki getting the Monday 8 PM slot -- cuz if that's an indication Hayes is getting the Chuck Toad boot off . . .  YAY!  And Jen's interview with Nancy (& the rest of her show) was pretty good.

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tessaray

tessaray

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I thought the interview was okay. Cassidy Hutchison was there plugging a book and it piqued my interest, so mission accomplished? 

I don't really like Jen Psaki and I'm not sure why. The network seems to love her though. 🤷‍♀️

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Moose135

Moose135

53 minutes ago, ScoobieDoobs said:

Isn't this a typical Rachel move?  She has the author right there, but rather than spend the whole show interviewing her, she spends nearly a half hour talking about her book.

Yes, and that's something I've always hated - she has someone on, but spends 10 minutes reading paragraphs of material from their book, rather than spend that time actually speaking with them.

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SeanBug

SeanBug

I have to say I enjoyed the interview with Cassidy, she seems to be in the "WTF was I thinking" period of her life,  as we all do at times when reflecting on our earlier decisions. 

Like others who testified, she put herself in a very dangerous position by coming forward.  And I'm sure she has burned a lot of bridges, personally and professionally, in order to tell the truth about what was going on and what she saw. 

This book sounds insane, in a good way. 

 

 

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DanaK

DanaK

(edited)

It was interesting that Cassidy said she adored Trump (or did) and was all in on working in his administration and didn't break with it until after January 6. And now she believes he's a danger to the country and feels this could be the end of the Republican party as she knew it (too late in my view) if her fellow Republicans don't finally repudiate Trump. I feel sorry for her and admire her bravery yet at the same time, I feel it took her too long and with a lot of bad things happening (mostly by Trump) to get her to wake up and walk away from the Trump world.

And yes, I agree that Rachel needs to stop spending so much time reading passages from a book when she's about to interview the author

Edited by DanaK
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MMEButterfly

MMEButterfly

I'm on chapter two of the book. In chapter one she gives us some of her early life experiences that begin to clarify. Her father was nearly addicted to The Apprentice. He was a fairly dysfunctional person, we read. But he highly influenced her very early days. And she is so very young--in her mid-twenties through all of this. 

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Medicine Crow

Medicine Crow

19 minutes ago, MMEButterfly said:

I'm on chapter two of the book. In chapter one she gives us some of her early life experiences that begin to clarify. Her father was nearly addicted to The Apprentice. He was a fairly dysfunctional person, we read. But he highly influenced her very early days. And she is so very young--in her mid-twenties through all of this. 

I only watched The Apprentice once & was sickened by celebrities being put in demeaning situations by The Donald.  I was never a fan of the show or his.

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SeanBug

SeanBug

(edited)
7 hours ago, DanaK said:

It was interesting that Cassidy said she adored Trump (or did) and was all in on working in his administration and didn't break with it until after January 6. And now she believes he's a danger to the country and feels this could be the end of the Republican party as she knew it (too late in my view) if her fellow Republicans don't finally repudiate Trump. I feel sorry for her and admire her bravery yet at the same time, I feel it took her too long and with a lot of bad things happening (mostly by Trump) to get her to wake up and walk away from the Trump world.

And yes, I agree that Rachel needs to stop spending so much time reading passages from a book when she's about to interview the author

I feel exactly the same about her saying she adored him.  I will grant her a little leeway in that she's only 27 now, which means she was about 20 when she interned for Ted Cruz, then she worked for Steve Scalise, then got a job in WH Office of Legislative Affairs when Meadows hired her as his Exec Asst. 

I imagine it's easy for young people to get swept up into the excitement of working for a Senator or in the White House, and they don't have the judgment and critical thinking skills to realize that they may have aligned themselves with some bad players. 

 

 

 

Edited by SeanBug
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possibilities

possibilities

I'm astonished that someone her age became the key assistant to the Chief of Staff.

I also thought her choice to style her hair to look like Monica Lewinsky was surprising.

I am NOT implying a link between these two, but it made her look like she walked out of the 1950s and seemed really out of character considering her prior experience looking much more current during public testimony.

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tessaray

tessaray

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2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I thought his interview with her was surprisingly good, also.

I agree. It was also a nice touch to play a clip from the audiobook (which she narrates), instead of just quoting it. 

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SeanBug

SeanBug

(edited)

Her interview on The View went more into "WTF were you thinking??!" working in that Administration. I appreciate that Rachel and the others were deferential to her and not being antagonistic, but come on. 

At some point it needs to be brought up.  Because it's the question I think everyone wants to know the answer to. 

If you're going to go on every news/talk show to promote your book, you better explain a few things about how you allowed yourself to keep working there.  Good policies or not. 

 

Edited by SeanBug
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tessaray

tessaray

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1 hour ago, SeanBug said:

At some point it needs to be brought up.  Because it's the question I think everyone wants to know the answer to. 

I think she did answer it. She's an idealistic  Republican and was from an early age. The fascinating part of her story is how she barely escaped the rot at the top with her integrity (mostly) intact. 

Rachel is usually respectful to her Republican guests. I might roll my eyes a bit at times but civility matters. 

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Quilt Fairy

Quilt Fairy

I'm going to post this here as it's the thread that probably gets the most views. 

The last part of Rachel's book tour was an interview with Chris Hayes for his "Why Is This Happening?" podcast.  For unknown reasons, MSNBC aired this interview, but on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I don't know if MSNBC advertised this at all, since my blood pressure can't handle too much of it these days.  Anyway, I only caught the last few minutes but I did see that it's on Peacock, so I was able to watch it tonight.  I highly recommend it, it was very interesting.   Besides talking about her latest book she answers questions about her process, as in, why she intentionally does some of the things we all find so irritating. 

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ahisma

ahisma

On 11/25/2023 at 8:02 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

The last part of Rachel's book tour was an interview with Chris Hayes for his "Why Is This Happening?" podcast.

Yes, I listened to the podcast—it’s such a good interview!

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tessaray

tessaray

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Normally Rachel's appearance on the WiTHpod should be put in her personal thread but it really was like a combined episode of both shows. 

Considering that Rachel comes up in most people's lists of partisan media, I found her comments towards the end moving and a tad alarming. Mend relationships, hang out with people no matter their political beliefs, get out and do real things (paraphrasing). I get the impression she really thinks - based on patterns she found in her research - that things are going to get worse before they get better. (I might be reading more into what she said and I should probably watch the video on Peacock to see the body language. I just caught the audio in my podcast feed.) But it's good advice anyway. 

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Quilt Fairy

Quilt Fairy

On 11/29/2023 at 12:37 PM, tessaray said:

I found her comments towards the end moving and a tad alarming. Mend relationships, hang out with people no matter their political beliefs, get out and do real things (paraphrasing). I get the impression she really thinks - based on patterns she found in her research - that things are going to get worse before they get better.

I was disturbed by that as well.  Not that you shouldn't try to connect with people, but the way she said it left me anxious and depressed.  More than usual. 

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Jodithgrace

Jodithgrace

Well, also, the book is just coming out tonight. Nobody in the audience has read it yet, so I appreciated Rachel summarizing and quoting it. This way, when she had Cheney face to face she could talk to her about the book without having to quote from it incessantly. 

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DanaK

DanaK

Really good interview with Liz Chaney once Rachel got around to it. When she has an interview with an important or otherwise very interesting subject, she should jettison the usual 20 minute windup and reading excerpts from the subject’s book, if they have one, and just spend most of the show just interviewing the subject, with maybe a short intro

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possibilities

possibilities

I thought it was important for her to show just what the book was saying, how hard-hitting it is. Otherwise, a lot of the audience might just tune out in disgust. She was showing why she was devoting the hour to what otherwise might have seemed like a book-promotion her viewers wouldn't want to see.

I don't mind when she gives a long introduction, though, even in other situations. I am not going to buy the book, so I also appreciate knowing some highlights.

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tessaray

tessaray

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I like the long opens too, though some go on way too long even for me. But then I'm ADD, so meandering is my default mode. 🙂 

Likely UO: There were a few interesting things in the Cheney interview but nothing that earthshattering (imo).

The fact that it fell a little flat for me is probably my fault. I appreciate the principled stand she took, the bts insights, etc but will her story inspire anyone else to do the right thing? 🤷‍♀️

Eta: Liz Cheney's book is selling out in most places in my midwestern city. Who knew? 

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tessaray

tessaray

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Just a quick note... Since there are so few posts these days, I didn't see the need to create a new topic for the new year.

I did add 2024 to the topic title but am open to renaming the current episode discussion. 

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