Maddow: For a would-be strongman, Trump is profoundly weak

The Rachel Maddow Show

Rachel Maddow, MS NOW

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4.5 • 34K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rachel Maddow points out that Donald Trump is following the "strongman" playbook so closely, and with such a lack of originality, that his behavior in his second term has become entirely predictable. And yet, for all of his aspirations to be a strongman, his leadership suffers from some profound weaknesses, from the economy to healthcare to criminal justice to immigration.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Really happy to have you here. First things first, I have an announcement to make on next week's show, this time next week, next Monday, September 22nd.
0:10.0	Kamala Harris is going to be here. This is going to be her first full-scale news interview since the 2024 election.
0:16.9	She will be here live on set with me for the show. I have roughly 400,000 things I want to ask her about. But I will get my chance. We're going to have that sit down one-on-one, one week from tonight right here, 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. That's next Monday, September 22nd. I'm very excited about that.
0:39.7	In the 10 months or so that have transpired since the 2024 election,
0:46.7	it feels like we've had about 10 years worth of news, of course.
0:52.4	But in thinking about talking to Kamala Harris next week, I realized that there's a lot on the
0:59.3	record from her campaign and from her time in public life that is kind of helpful right
1:04.0	now, especially helpful to the point that we shouldn't kid ourselves that anything that that Trump has done is surprising.
1:15.1	We shouldn't kid ourselves that the way he has behaved in office in the second term is a surprise.
1:22.1	I mean, clearly looking back at Kamala Harris' campaign against him, looking basically to
1:27.4	anybody who has been
1:28.4	paying attention anytime in the last, I don't know, a few years, it was not that hard to see it
1:35.7	coming.
1:38.1	Donald Trump has told us his priorities for a second term. He has an enemy enemies list of people he intends to prosecute.
1:47.4	He says that one of his highest priorities is to set free the violent extremists who insulted
1:55.6	those law enforcement officers on January 6th. Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens.
2:08.9	Pretty much nailed it, right?
2:11.0	That was a week before the 2024 election.
2:14.9	Kamala Harris speaking at the ellipse outside the White House.
2:19.6	And since Trump has been back in office, of course, he has freed the people who attacked the Capitol and assaulted police
2:24.8	officers on January 6th. He has set up his Justice Department and his FBI and as much of the
2:29.8	rest of the government as he can to go after his enemies list, he really does have the U.S.
	...

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