The Rachel Maddow Show

Rachel Maddow describes how the Supreme Court conservatives radically expanded presidential power with a single ruling, even in the face of Donald Trump's unbridled corruption and abuse of the power he already had.

Transcribed - Published: 30 June 2026

Rachel Maddow talks with Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer, authors of "On Courage: How to be a dissident in an age of fear," about "the central question of how to live right as an American citizen right now," and the variety of ways people can throw sand in the gears of authoritarianism to preserve democracy.

Transcribed - Published: 29 June 2026

Rachel Maddow points out that while it's never a good thing to have a bad president, having a bad president as incompetent as Donald Trump means he is also bad at pursuing his own corrupt goals. Maddow points out examples of Trump's failed political prosecutions, caving to pushback and sparking a wave of political backlash against himself.

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2026

MS NOW's Michele Norris interviews former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama about their time in the White House and opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2026

MS NOW's Michele Norris interviews former President Barack Obama about his time in office and the opening of his new presidential center in Chicago.

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2026

Rachel Maddow lists the goals Donald Trump set for the war he started with Iran, from regime change to obliterating Iran's nuclear capacity, none of which have been met as Trump announces an agreement that reportedly will at least re-open the Strait of Hormuz, though apparently with some fees attached. MS NOW's Ayman Mohyeldin joins to discuss.

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2026

Donald Trump was roundly booed in New York City outside of Madison Square Garden on his way to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs. Trump was booed again once he was spotted inside the venue. Rachel Maddow shares footage of the booing and remarks on the way Trump has arranged to benefit financially from his other sports preoccupation, a UFC fight on the White House grounds.

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2026

Rachel Maddow and a panel of her MS NOW colleagues analyze primary election returns from New Jersey, South Dakota, Iowa, New Mexico, Montana and California, and react to breaking news of the Supreme Court granting an "emergency" request from Alabama to allow the elimination of a majority Black district, and CBS News firing Scott Pelley for speaking out against changes made to 60 Minutes by new management.

Transcribed - Published: 3 June 2026

Rachel Maddow and a panel of her MS NOW colleagues analyze primary election returns in New Jersey, South Dakota, Iowa, New Mexico, Montana and California.

Transcribed - Published: 3 June 2026

Amid a politically punishing backlash against Donald Trump's flagrant $1.776 billion money grab for his criminal allies, a judge is considering whether to investigation if the "IRS settlement" on which the slush fund is based began as a legitimate court case or was a fraud on the court from the beginning. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance talks with Rachel Maddow about the legal guidelines the judge is considering.

Transcribed - Published: 2 June 2026

Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade talks with Rachel Maddow about her acclaimed new book, "The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government," in which she draws upon her experience prosecuting fraud and organized crime to understand how to defeat Donald Trump's style of intimidation and inflicting pain on others to dominate them and get what he wants.

Transcribed - Published: 1 June 2026

A special broadcast of Rachel Maddow's recent live event at the 92nd Street Y: A conversation with Steven J. Ross, author of "The Secret War Against Hate."

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2026

Rachel Maddow looks at Donald Trump's attempt to have $1.8 billion taxpayer dollars handed to him to distribute to his friends and allies, and debunks the notion that this money-grab has anything to do with suing the IRS. Rep. Jamie Raskin, who calls Trump's scheme "nothing but a racket," joins to discuss Trump's increasingly open, shameless corruption.

Transcribed - Published: 19 May 2026

As Donald Trump has tried to use the Department of Justice as his personal tool for petty revenge and political intimidation, the department's track record has been abysmal and its frequent mistakes, mortifying. Rachel Maddow takes a look at the degradation Trump has brought to a once-distinguished facet of American government.

Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2026

AI – and coverage of it – is everywhere. But what is artificial intelligence, really, beyond the buzzword? Each week, in a special new miniseries - ‘The AI End Game’ - Chris Hayes is joined by preeminent experts on AI and its effects to help make sense of this revolutionary time in history.

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2026

Rachel Maddow makes the case that from the first day of his second term, Donald Trump has been engaged in "a concerted and intense targeting of Black Americans," from firings to executive orders and including his Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act, which will likely largely eliminate Black congressional representation in the American South.

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2026

Julia Ainsley, senior Homeland Security correspondent for NBC News and author of the newly released, "Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program" talks with Rachel Maddow about her original reporting into how the Trump administration's series of ad libs on implementing Trump's immigration policy led to a cascade of failures that turned Trump's biggest political boon into a disaster that turned the country against him.

Transcribed - Published: 4 May 2026

The Trump administration "would prefer to do things that are easy," Rachel Maddow points out. And so, by making the implementation of a nationwide immigrant prison system not at all easy, and, in fact, quite hard, Americans pushing back against Trump's plan are winning, and Trump's prisons are not opening.

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2026

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Donald Trump's secretary of labor, is resigning in a cloud of scandal, extending a string of high-level departures from the administration. Rachel Maddow surveys the landscape of Trump's Cabinet.

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2026

Rachel Maddow highlights some striking parallels between Donald Trump and the authoritarian regime his administration is modeled on, Victor Orbán in Hungary. Maddow notes that the basis for an authoritarian's power is the sense that their continued rule is inevitable, so seeing Orbán tossed from power so handily by the voters of Hungary sends a clear and upsetting message to Trump, and an encouraging message to Trump's opponents.

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2026

Rachel Maddow looks at how Donald Trump's overall cluelessness and incompetence is made worse by Pete Hegseth's active destabilizing of the U.S. military and poor decision-making in wartime.

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2026

Rachel Maddow points out several instances of Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security paying tens of millions of dollars more than the assessed value of warehouses the administration wants to turn into massive prison camps for immigrants.

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2026

Rachel Maddow looks at the news stories we would have trouble believing if we weren't living through them in real time, including Denmark, a U.S. ally, making preparations to defend itself and Greenland against the U.S., Donald Trump staggering around war crime-level threats against Iran, a MAGA sheriff seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots, and ICE agents being sent to airports with no real job to do.

Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2026

Rachel Maddow looks at how Donald Trump's fast talk and gaslighting can't change the reality of the mess he has made in the Strait of Hormuz as allies resist his bullying and rivals and opportunists take advantage of him to enrich themselves.

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2026

In a rambling press conference full of bizarre answers to questions about the war he started against Iran, Donald Trump admitted that he is doing it "for the other parts of the world." Rachel Maddow looks at how Russia is benefitting tremendously from Trump's attack on Iran, even as it helps Iran target American interests, and how Trump has set off a global energy crisis of historic proportions.

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2026

Rachel Maddow and her MS NOW colleagues track the primary election returns in Texas and North Carolina, with Ali Velshi offering special statistical insights from the big board as one of the most closely watched elections, the Democratic Senate primary between Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico mired in legal complications after polling place confusion in Dallas.

Transcribed - Published: 4 March 2026

"They're not sending their best." Rachel Maddow reviews how the collection of unqualified culture warriors Donald Trump has put in charge of key facets of the United States national security apparatus is much worse than merely incompetent now that Trump has started a war with Iran and stoked a new level of threat against Americans and American interests.

Transcribed - Published: 3 March 2026

Rachel Maddow joins MS NOW's ongoing live breaking coverage of the United States' attack on Iran.

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2026

Listen to MS NOW’s Special Coverage of President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union Address on February 24th, 2026.

Transcribed - Published: 25 February 2026

Rachel Maddow considering the tradition associated with the State of the Union address in which one member of the president's Cabinet does not attend the event in case something happens that prevents everyone in attendance at the speech who would ordinarily be part of the presidential succession from being able to serve. But in Donald Trump's case, his Cabinet is so full of scandal and disgrace, designating a survivor seems impossible.

Transcribed - Published: 24 February 2026

Rachel Maddow shares highlights from a judge's remarks in rejecting Donald Trump's power to dismantle a national monument i Philadelphia to hide the fact that George Washington owned slaves. The judge compared Trump's censorious "anti-woke" edict to the mission of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984.

Transcribed - Published: 17 February 2026

A preview of “MS NOW Presents: Clock It” – your invitation to Symone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels’s weekly groupchat.

Transcribed - Published: 12 February 2026

Donald Trump is, of course, mentioned thousands of times in the Epstein files, as one would expect given his close relationship with notorious pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, but Trump's association with many of the names in those files did not end with Epstein's arrest, or even death. Rachel Maddow highlights some of the mentions that are oddly still enjoying impunity.

Transcribed - Published: 10 February 2026

Introducing “Clock It,” a new podcast at the intersection of culture and politics from Symone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels.

Transcribed - Published: 5 February 2026

Rachel Maddow looks at the latest headlines showing Donald Trump backpedaling in the face of protests and plummeting poll numbers, taking a shocking loss in a special election, losing court cases, and watching resignations in protest deplete his Justice Department. The pushback against Donald Trump is happening everywhere he turns and grows ever more effective the more Trump wobbles and weakens.

Transcribed - Published: 3 February 2026

Donald Trump's anti-immigrant mission was already damaging his standing with the portion of Americans who didn't already dislike him, but the escalating violence and brutality and shocking on-camera killings have seen his opposition balloon from Americans protesting to a large swath of his own party, business leaders, clergy and Congress. Rachel Maddow outlines how the forces of democracy are imposing themselves on Trump.

Transcribed - Published: 27 January 2026

Rachel Maddow and her MS NOW colleagues share their reaction and analysis of former special counsel Jack Smith's testimony about the criminal investigations of Donald Trump before the House Judiciary Committee.

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2026

Rachel Maddow and her MS NOW colleagues share their reaction and analysis of former special counsel Jack Smith's testimony about the criminal investigations of Donald Trump before the House Judiciary Committee.

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2026

Rachel Maddow shares recent examples of prominent members of the clergy speaking out against Donald Trump's abuse anti-immigrant tactics and his belligerent foreign policy, and talks with Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, about defending immigrant members of his community and Donald Trump's dismantling of the moral role the U.S. plays in the world.

Transcribed - Published: 20 January 2026

While Donald Trump has made clear how he intends to wield his power and retain his power, the most pressing question for Americans is how his opponents intend to stop him. Jon Ralston, founder and CEO of the Nevada Independent, and author of the newly published "The Game Changer: How Harry Reid remade the rules and showed Democrats how to fight," talks with Rachel Maddow about how the Democrats' best political tactician and savviest fighter in living memory would have handled stopping Trump and retaking power before it's too late.

Transcribed - Published: 19 January 2026

Rachel Maddow rounds up a litany of recent court losses Donald Trump has suffered, as even some Republicans in Congress are agreeing to block or otherwise mitigate the damage Trump's policies are inflicting on their constituents, all while Americans rally in protest of abuses and outright crimes committed by Trump's ICE agents.

Transcribed - Published: 13 January 2026

A special invitation from Rachel Maddow.

Transcribed - Published: 9 January 2026

Rachel Maddow runs through the litany of excuses and justifications the Trump administration has presented to explain the military invasion of Venezuela, and points out that none of what has been floated holds up under scrutiny. Every principle the Trump administration claims to be defending comes with examples of the administration not caring at all about that principle. Even the popular idea that it was all for oil doesn't really make sense upon closer examination. But there is one reason that is consistent with Trump's behavior through the first year of his second term in office.

Transcribed - Published: 6 January 2026

Rachel Maddow hosts a special conversation with guests from her "Burn Order" podcast, live from the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles to discuss the fight against the race-based incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II and how lessons from that episode in American history apply today.

Transcribed - Published: 30 December 2025

Rachel Maddow shares a look at how outrage over government corruption in Bulgaria prompted massive protests and eventually the resignation of the prime minister and his government. And in the United States, for all of Donald Trump's unpopular policies being protested across the country, the self-dealing and corruption that has become his administration's hallmark may ultimately be what leads to Trump's downfall.

Transcribed - Published: 23 December 2025

Rachel Maddow reviews how poorly Donald Trump's policies are being received by the American public as Trump continues to appoint laughably unqualified sycophants to top agency roles, and leadership failures mount. As a result, not only are Trump's poll numbers tanking, but even Republican politicians are recognizing that it's not in their interest to tie their fates to Trump's sinking ship.

Transcribed - Published: 16 December 2025

Rachel Maddow hosts a prime time special event with historian Timothy Snyder about the rise of authoritarianism and how we can meet the moment. (Recorded on November 21, 2025 at the Harris Theater in Chicago’s Millennium Park)

Transcribed - Published: 13 December 2025

Rachel Maddow looks at a variety of legal tactics and pressure campaigns that are having success against the Trump administration's overreach in immigration enforcement and the Justice Department's vendetta prosecutions. Where people push back, Trump loses, or sometimes doesn't even try to fight, and the more Americans learn that lesson, the stronger the opposition Trump faces.

Transcribed - Published: 9 December 2025

Rachel Maddow relays the details of a new Washington Post report that Donald Trump's secretary of defense, former weekend cable news host Pete Hegseth, gave orders to kill everyone on board a boat he accused of running drugs to the United States, which meant finishing off the survivors of an initial strike that destroyed the boat — the literal textbook definition of an illegal order. Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee joins to discuss a new, bipartisan push to investigate Hegseth's orders.

Transcribed - Published: 2 December 2025

Rachel Maddow’s new podcast “Burn Order” is out now! Listen to a special preview.

Transcribed - Published: 1 December 2025