As you know, Rachel Maddow was on a self-chosen one night a week schedule on MSNBC for some time and her replacement was Alex Wagner the other four nights. After Donald Trump won the election, she helped out the network by coming back to work five nights a week but only for Trump’s first 100 days.

During those 100 days her coverage of Trump was  fearless. It almost felt like she was baiting him. She mocked him. She told the stories of fired workers, had them on the show, provided details of the ransacking of agencies by DOGE, and spent substantial time nightly showing footage of people protesting around the country. Iowa protests made the show.  She focused on the country rather than the White House and her show shined a light in the people’s direction, with nightly coverage of how we were fighting back against the Trump administration.

She also reported when Trump failed. She reported wins for the resistance. She followed full circle, reporting  when the Peace Institute got their building back. When they didn’t close as many Social Security offices as they wanted to, when they had to put things back. When they backed down. She had no worries at all about laughing in their faces, saying the emperor has no clothes.

The end of her 100 days was tough. One night a week is simply not enough. There was a lot of online activity as the end of her 100 days approached. Loyal viewers were begging her to stay longer.  On this podcast she explained what it was like and why she couldn’t continue to do it five nights.  She had made it look easy but it wasn’t easy emotionally, covering our slide into fascism. But she said she can do Mondays. At least we have her coverage one night a week. She is a national treasure, so we’ll take it and wish her well.

Rachel was the first guest on Nicole Wallace’s new podcast, “The Best People.”  Nicole sits down with the “smartest, funniest, wisest people she knows. These are the people who are the best at what they do and use their success to help others. New episodes drop on Mondays, beginning June 2nd. You can sign up for MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get early access, ad-free listening, and bonus content.”

“I feel like there is still real value in making sure that we’re covering them in such a way that is not the stories that they want us to tell and not the topics they want us to be covering. So the whole provocation and yanking our chain, you know the Trump 2028 stuff and all those things are designed to get us to react… we must express outrage because he’s done an outrageous thing. I get it.. I understand how it all works but I feel there is real value in making sure we are telling the stories that are not the stories of their choosing. – Rachel Maddow