Rachel Maddow: Our Favorite Rhodes Scholar

[AmandaPanda]

Want to discuss interviews Rachel has given other places? Have something you're dying to say about Rachel that doesn't fit into discussion of the show? Want to discuss Rachel's relationship with other MSNBC personalities? Have at it here!

[HeyLookItsAng]

I found this to be the most delightful thing I watched this week. RealTalkRachel (tm) is my favorite Rachel.

[wifey81]

I am here to out myself as a complete RM fan girl. I love the way she comes at issues from abstract perspective. I love her ethics, I love her educated perspective but most of all, I love it when she plays the xylophone. She is the bomb dot com. The end.

[Tunia]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHEL!

[M. Darcy]

It's Rachel's favorite day of the year! Happy Ed Balls Day everyone! 

[Lava VaVoom]

I luvs Dr. M and watch her show every day at midnight.  But sometimes she begins a story with so much detail, I've lost interest by the time she gets to the meat of the issue. 

[M. Darcy]

I really hope that this is true

[car54]

Quote

I really hope that this is true

I hope so too--he did it to her more than once during the election season when they'd co-host so I am glad if someone put him in his place.    She took it gracefully every time, because she has a lot of class.

Lawrence O'Donnell cracks me up--he tweets almost every single day about Rachel being number one against CNN and Fox News.   He knows what's going on and he won't let the progressives go down without a fight.

[M. Darcy]

Rachel is on Colbert tonight. 

[ktwo]

And she was on the Howard Stern show today:

https://www.howardstern.com/show/2017/5/24/rachel-maddow-talks-russian-hacking-her-short-hair-and-fox-news-job-offer-she-got-roger-ailes/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=sternshow

[attica]

Good interview and cover story in the latest Rolling Stone.

On election night:

Quote

How did you manage the shock of election night?
It's funny – if you look at right-wing social media there's this whole thing about how I had a meltdown on election night and cried. And they found tape of me talking about a totally unrelated story months earlier and said that that was me on election night. But I was actually pretty calm that night, and the reason I was pretty calm is because there's a lot to do. I'm not a good ad-libber, and anchoring election night is five, six, seven, eight hours of ad-libbing, which for me is like juggling seven tennis balls while merging onto the freeway at night in the rain with no wipers and no lights. So, no, I had no feelings on election night.

On her on-air look:

Quote

I have no visual-presentation goals for myself," she says in her office at 30 Rock. A long rack of near-identical dark suit jackets hangs on one wall. "It's on purpose. You line me up with Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Hayes and Brian Williams, and we've all got a very similar shade of the same haircut.

They also have her high-school yearbook photo, if you've never seen it.

[M. Darcy]

Remember when Rachel bought the wax figure of Ike? Well, she wasn't the only one who bought a wax President. From John Oliver's show last night Harding

[teddysmom]

Laura Fucking Linney!  

Edited July 14, 2017 by teddysmom

[nowandlater]

David Letterman was on Howard Stern yesterday for a 94-minute interview and Dave said he's a devoted viewer of MSNBC's primetime lineup, including his old pal Brian Williams. But Letterman and Stern are huge fans of Maddow.

[jjj]

Very cool, and thanks for the link!  (Even though I can't stand Howard Stern.  But these days, the competition for  my "can't stand" list has become much more intense.)

4 minutes ago, nowandlater said:

David Letterman was on Howard Stern yesterday for a 94-minute interview and Dave said he's a devoted viewer of MSNBC's primetime lineup, including his old pal Brian Williams. But Letterman and Stern are huge fans of Maddow.

[nowandlater]

2 hours ago, jjj said:

Very cool, and thanks for the link!  (Even though I can't stand Howard Stern.  But these days, the competition for  my "can't stand" list has become much more intense.)

Stern is 63. He has daughters ages 34, 31 and 24. He's sort of a different person nowadays and is known for doing these long, probing interviews that could last from 1 to 2 hours without interruption. He's had these interviews with everybody from Lance Armstrong to Charlize Theron to Scarlett Johansson.

His interviews got a great writeup in the New York Times last year.

Anyways, here's Rachel's interview with Howard from May 24. (It starts at the 1:56:24 mark, if that link doesn't take you directly there.)

[teddysmom]

This would be an amazing interview for Rachel.

John LeCarre  has a new book, and Terri Gross interviewed him this week on Fresh Air.  He worked as a spy before he retired and started writing.  He gave his thoughts on Russia, Putin, and how they played Trump.

[jjj]

Is this happening?  Or are you suggesting it?  Completely agree!

1 hour ago, teddysmom said:

This would be an amazing interview for Rachel.

John LeCarre  has a new book, and Terri Gross interviewed him this week on Fresh Air.  He worked as a spy before he retired and started writing.  He gave his thoughts on Russia, Putin, and how they played Trump.

[teddysmom]

Suggesting it. I was listening to it yesterday and thinking OMG Rachel would eat this up.  

It's on iTunes if you want to hear him on Fresh Air. 

He does say he believes the Steele document, honey trap and all. But that he wouldn't get in trouble for the prostitutes, it's too easy to disprove, even if it is on film.

it would be the money.

He reiterated - follow the money. 

[Mmmfloorpie]

Personally, Bill Clinton is my favourite Rhodes Scholar!

[BuckeyeLou]

Did anyone see Rachel on "Tonight Show w/Jimmy Fallon" last night(Sept. 28)?  I stayed up to watch...I love seeing Rachel, she is so enthusiastic & funny in interviews.

She comes out jumping up & down(I love her black/white sneakers), she is so enthused, then she takes a sip of some whiskey that Harrison Ford left behind, :)

She's a really good interview...it was worth staying up late.

[Galloway Cave]

33 minutes ago, BuckeyeLou said:

She comes out jumping up & down(I love her black/white sneakers), she is so enthused, then she takes a sip of some whiskey that Harrison Ford left behind, :)

Drinking Harrison's whiskey? OK, that's it. She is so totally My TV Girlfriend, even though I am straight (or is it now called cis?). We can go flyfishing together....

Edited September 29, 2017 by Galloway Cave

[nowandlater]

I also posted this on the Lawrence thread...Howard Stern and Jerry Seinfeld talked Lawrence and Rachel....from September 25...

 

Edited October 7, 2017 by nowandlater

[QueerGirrl]

Happy birthday Rachel!!!  Hopefully you're enjoying some fishing!

[jjj]

3 hours ago, QueerGirrl said:

Happy birthday Rachel!!!  Hopefully you're enjoying some fishing!

Oh, I did not realize she was an April 1 baby!  Indeed, Happy Birthday!  Glad the Engle special report gave her a long weekend, which is well earned.

[jjj]

Rachel's undergraduate thesis from 1994 linked here (ignore the "unavailable", which refers to the abstract) -- just select the box "Download thesis".

https://publicpolicy.stanford.edu/publications/identifiable-lives-aids-and-response-dehumanization

[ahisma]

Michelle Wolf at the White House Correspondents Dinner:

We also have Rachel Maddow. We cannot forget about Rachel Maddow. She is the Peter Pan of MSNBC. But instead of never growing up, she never gets to the point. Watching Rachel Maddow is like going to Target. You went in for milk, but you left with shampoo, candles and the entire history of the Byzantine Empire. “I didn't need this.”

[Medicine Crow]

I laughed at that one because she's right (sometimes).

It looks like Joy Reid has "stepped in it" ... nice to see Rachel backing her.

[Galloway Cave]

2 minutes ago, Cajungirl64 said:

Without them, I would be curled up in the fetal position sucking my thumb by now. 

I know. News breaks, I try to watch it, then just give up and think "Rachel will explain it all to me tonight".

[Cajungirl64]

30 minutes ago, Galloway Cave said:

I know. News breaks, I try to watch it, then just give up and think "Rachel will explain it all to me tonight".

 Rachel is the Explainer-in-Chief. She's a Rhodes Scholar who takes incredibly complex narratives and breaks them all down so us lowly non-Rhodes Scholars can make sense of all the insanity. She's also astonishingly good at making it seem as though she's just reporting this stuff off the top of her head. Until recently, I had NO IDEA she writes and reads scripts for each show. It really feels as if she's talking off the cuff. And I'm awed that she's able to scrap a script she's already written, then pivot and write a whole new script (usually in an hour or two) based on whatever "breaking news" is coming out of this clown-car administration before air-time. 

I read an article which reported on how much Rachel makes annually compared to what Trump's BFF and co-conspirator Sean Hannity makes. It's shameful. MSNBC had better be willing to pony up the big bucks to keep her or another channel (*cough* CNN) will. 

Edited May 3, 2018 by Cajungirl64
added content

[M. Darcy]

Rachel is going to be on A.M. Joy tomorrow morning. 

[ShutUpLutz]

The one flaw, no that's not right, ANNOYANCE that Rachel has is that she takes FOREVER to get to the point. This isn't a once in a while thing, it happens multiple times EVERY WEEK.

Couple of problems with it.

1)It's annoying .

2)Did I mention it's annoying as fuck?

3)Her dicking around like this takes up A LOT of show time. 

The worst example of this was when she got Trump's tax returns and spent OVER 30 MINUTES hyping what turned out to be ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

It was as bad as some of the shit FoxNews pulls.

[shok]

7 hours ago, ShutUpLutz said:

The one flaw, no that's not right, ANNOYANCE that Rachel has is that she takes FOREVER to get to the point. This isn't a once in a while thing, it happens multiple times EVERY WEEK.

It happens every day, every week... because that's how Rachel does her show and how she has done it for ten very successful years. It's how she tells her story and enough people like it to make her the highest rated cable news show in the country.

[IrishPirate]

Chris Hayes has a great interview with Rachel on his podcast, "Why Is This Happening?"  https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/msnbc/why-is-this-happening

Edited November 25, 2018 by IrishPirate
Added link to podcast.

[Quilt Fairy]

On his latest podcast "Why is this happening?", Rachel is Chris Hayes' sole guest.  They spend the better part of an hour talking about Bagman and a variety of other subjects, including some personal stuff and also what it's like to be a reporter in a "fake news" era.   I highly recommend it. 

[TexasGal]

I listened to the last episode (is that the right word for podcast?) of Bagman this morning and bless her for trying to get the government attorney to tell whatever the "salacious" information was.  And bless him for not telling, even though I really want to know!!

Agnew's attorney was cracking me up, defense attorney to the bitter end!

[ahisma]

Rachel and Mike Yarvitz were on Fresh Air with Terry Gross this week talking about Bag Man, the Spiro Agnew scandal, and parallels to current events. I could have listened to hours more of them talking!

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/09/683601904/rachel-maddow-investigates-spiro-agnews-bribery-scandal

[spiderpig]

Oh  Rachel..I like you but quit giggling and laughing during your presentation.  Just get to the POINT.

I love Chris Hayes and Lawrence, but I find myself yelling "just shut up and get on with it" during her show.  I can deal with the hand-waving and other dramatics, but QUIT GIGGLING!!!

She just did it again covering the Barr hearings.

[M. Darcy]

Article about Rachel in today's Washington Post 

[QueerGirrl]

Keep going Rachel!!!

[Jaded]

Moved from the show thread....

Chris Cuomo took a subtle swipe at Rachel's show last night to while complimenting how great her team is and how she trounces him in the ratings. Then said something about what she kept saying about the Muller Report didn't pan out. That's what it sounded like anyway. He was talking kind of fast and it seemed like he tried to backtrack after realizing what came out of his mouth.  I don't usually watch his show but happened to turn it on CNN when a re-airing was on at a later time. They show him so close up that it kinda scares me when I've watched. There's something about his eyes that would look better and be less distracting if they panned the camera out a bit.

I went to watch what was supposed to be a re-airing of Rachel this morning before First Look. Instead Brian Williams with his 11th Hour show was on.  The MSNBC site doesn't post full 24hr a day weekly schedules on their site just what's on from 5am et to 11pm weekly and 12am est on the weekends.

[meowmommy]

Maddow, other MSNBC hosts see ratings drop, Fox up

Quote

The phenomenon isn’t unusual; political camps are more interested in watching news when it reflects well on their favorites, and vice versa. Maddow’s ratings dropped sharply in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, as many fans of Hillary Clinton couldn’t bring themselves to watch the news after Trump’s victory, but eventually rebounded. Similarly, Hannity saw some ratings weakness late last year as bad news piled up for Trump.

That was me.  I tuned out the news for several days after the 2016 election, a week after the Cavanaugh hearing, and Monday after the Barr letter.

What strikes me as weird is tracking and reporting daily ratings.  Unless it's the Super Bowl, an audience on one or two days is likely not reflective of the popularity of a given program.

4 hours ago, Jaded said:

Chris Cuomo took a subtle swipe at Rachel's show last night to while complimenting how great her team is and how she trounces him in the ratings.

I honestly never think of Chris Cuomo when I think about programming on CNN.  I think of Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper and Don Lemon, so watching Rachel is not a deliberate decision not to watch Chris Cuomo.

Edited March 29, 2019 by meowmommy

[ahisma]

9 hours ago, Jaded said:

Then said something about what she kept saying about the Muller Report didn't pan out. 

5 hours ago, meowmommy said:

The phenomenon isn’t unusual; political camps are more interested in watching news when it reflects well on their favorites, and vice versa.

Mmmhmmm. We'll see the media pundits and viewers back onside when the actual Mueller Report releases and when things move forward on any of the seventeen other investigations into the President’s affairs. I think Adam Schiff's off-the-cuff speech reminded people of that.

[SpiritSong]

There seems to be some kind of (maybe?) coordinated attack on Rachel going on with the media. I've seen articles in The Guardian, Slate and Politico just this week all going after her for her coverage of Mueller's investigation. None of them can point to any false statements she's made, but they're all up in arms about her reporting over the past 2 years.

One after another, after another. Very little mention that this has been a big topic on other MSNBC shows and on CNN. The attacks all center on Rachel Maddow. I think her intelligence scares the shit out of the right wing. They seem to be trying awfully hard to discredit her.

Edited March 30, 2019 by SpiritSong

[meowmommy]

9 hours ago, SpiritSong said:

There seems to be some kind of (maybe?) coordinated attack on Rachel going on with the media.

Andrew Sullivan made a cheap shot against her on Bill Maher's show, too.  And Maher, who has beat the collusion drum as loudly as anyone, agreed with him.  It was completely out of left field, as her name or anything she had ever said had not been part of the discussion.

She's dealing with it in exactly the right way:  continuing to do her job and not engaging the critics.

On 3/29/2019 at 9:17 PM, ahisma said:

I think Adam Schiff's off-the-cuff speech reminded people of that.

I don't think any of it was off the cuff.  He was prepared for what they were going to throw at him.  It was a terrific speech, but he had written it in advance (notice him looking at his papers and changing pages).

Edited March 31, 2019 by meowmommy

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, meowmommy said:

Andrew Sullivan made a cheap shot against her on Bill Maher's show, too.  And Maher, who has beat the collusion drum as loudly as anyone, agreed with him.  It was completely out of left field, as her name or anything she had ever said had not been part of the discussion.

I was totally confused by that. It was this out of left field "Oh, but then you're smug like Rachel Maddow" and I was like...huh? She's supposed to be smug? So it was helpful to read here how there's a concerted attack on the right to go after her for her reporting and pretend she always claimed Mueller was going to find evidence of conspiracy.

[kassygreene]

Andrew Sullivan calling anybody smug?  Please.

[Apprentice79]

On ‎3‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 6:36 PM, meowmommy said:

Maddow, other MSNBC hosts see ratings drop, Fox up

That was me.  I tuned out the news for several days after the 2016 election, a week after the Cavanaugh hearing, and Monday after the Barr letter.

What strikes me as weird is tracking and reporting daily ratings.  Unless it's the Super Bowl, an audience on one or two days is likely not reflective of the popularity of a given program.

I honestly never think of Chris Cuomo when I think about programming on CNN.  I think of Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper and Don Lemon, so watching Rachel is not a deliberate decision not to watch Chris Cuomo.

Chris Cuomo is an arrogant blowhard like his brother Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. I hate how he patronizes Don Lemon.  I am not a big fan of CNN for many reasons that are off-topic.  Rachel can handle the right's attacks on her. She is an out and proud lesbian, she has had to deal with assholes all her life. Rachel will be fine. 

Edited April 1, 2019 by Apprentice79

[M. Darcy]

Yesterday was Rachel’s bday! 

[meowmommy]

1 hour ago, ScoobieDoobs said:

Sure, there’s been stuff about Chao’s unethical behavior in the Times & WaPo in the past few weeks, but Rachel’s sum-up of Chao’s exceptional (& yet seemingly casual) corruption was jaw dropping.

I've read those reports as well, so there was nothing new for me tonight, but what Rachel has that the others don't (and that's why NYT is being a blithering idiot) is air time.  A face and a voice.  A bully pulpit.  When you read a newspaper, you select the articles you want to read, and the ones you don't slide right past your consciousness.  When you listen to Rachel, you sit there passively and absorb whatever she has decided to send across time and space.

She doesn't actually do tons of original reporting, but what she does do, very very well, is synthesize salient information, tie journalists' reports together with a bow, and present the reports and the reporters in a package millions can see and hear.  I would have added cut to the chase, but her A-blocks aren't always as Campbell's soup condensed as they often need to be.

26 minutes ago, freddi said:

I thought I had missed Rachel mentioning that she would be a host of the first debate, but I see it was just announced today, so good for her!

Apparently NYT, not content with barring their journalists from visiting Rachel, doesn't think she's a real journalist either:

Quote

The inclusion of Ms. Maddow — MSNBC’s biggest star and, save for Sean Hannity of Fox News, the top-rated pundit on cable news — is a wild card of sorts.

Her nightly show is a required stop for Democratic presidential contenders, and she is a widely revered figure on the left. But opinion journalists are rarely chosen to interrogate candidates in the formal setting of a debate stage.