The Rachel Maddow Show

We The People: A conversation with Rachel Maddow and Timothy Snyder

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) Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts. To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Trump suffers frequent failures as Americans push back at every turn

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. Rachel Maddow explains that as Donald Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives increasing credence and authority to crackpots, the authority and reputation of American medical expertise is suffering such extreme degradation that science-minded state officials are establishing new fact-based health alliances to advise the public on matters like vaccinations. Former CDC chief Dr. Richard Besser joins to discuss the crisis at the CDC under Trump and Kennedy. "Iceblock" app developer Joshua Aaron joins to discuss his lawsuit to unblock his app, a community-based ICE raid tracker, from Apple's app store. Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts. To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Possible war crime puts Trump's 'illegal orders' freakout in new context

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. Rachel Maddow talks with Nadya Tolokonnikova, founding member of Russian dissident activism group Pussy Riot, about what it means that the Putin administration has declared her a member of an "extremist" organization, and the parallels to Donald Trump using a similar tactic to give himself the tools for targeting people he doesn't like. Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts. To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Preview of “Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order”

Rachel Maddow’s new series lays bare one of the most shocking decisions in American history. It’s story that reveals how an executive order authorizing the mass roundup of innocent Japanese Americans came to be, the powerful players who engineered it, and the burn order that tried to erase it from history. Stay right here to listen to a special preview of “Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order.” And for the full episode, search for “Burn Order” and follow the show. Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts. To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

'It's absurd': Sen. Kelly bites back at Trump, Hegseth threats over 'illegal orders' video

Senator Mark Kelly, in an interview with Rachel Maddow, emphasized his view that "it's almost comical" that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are calling it a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that he cited part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in a recent video. Kelly explained his participation in the video in the context of protecting members of the military from a president who "doesn't seem to care about the Constitution, the rule of law." Rachel Maddow shares reporting on bizarre behavior by former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who tampered with his ankle monitor while on house arrest and was sent to jail. Donald Trump subsequently boasted of speaking with Bolsonaro and expecting to see him soon, apparently unaware of Bolsonaro's incarceration. Did Trump accidentally reveal too much about why Bolsonaro was tampering with his ankle monitor? While there were questions at the start of the Trump administration about whether court rulings would be obeyed, it wasn't seen as a certainty that Donald Trump's representatives in court would lie so much to judges. Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade talks with Rachel Maddow about what the likely fallout will be for Trump's legal lackeys.  Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts. To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.