With less than one minute until showtime, Rachel Maddow was nowhere to be seen. On her set at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on June 19, the Jetsons-style desk bearing her name was vacant in front of the cameras. But the crew wasn’t concerned. You see, in this time of great uncertainty in politics and media, one thing at least remains constant: Rachel Maddow is on at 9:00 P.M. on MSNBC.
The Rachel Maddow Show has been on air for almost nine years, and in that time its host has become a hero to many on the left, famous for a distinct style of analysis that uncoils even the strangest and most complex stories with an accessible, professorial ease. And as it would turn out, a taste for the strange and complex makes Maddow particularly well-suited for the unlikely era of Donald Trump. With his political ascent, Maddow also went vaulting, from merely popular to number one in prime-time cable news in the coveted 25-to-54 age demographic. She has drawn as many as 4.1 million viewers a night.
The stillness of the studio was suddenly disturbed as Maddow sprinted toward her desk. Within seconds she was in her chair, sorting through notes. Then a calm came over her as she peered into the camera and started talking in her conversational way.
Maddow’s ease is almost divorced from the reality of what she covers. Trump presents a bizarro set of challenges for the media. I cover the White House for New York magazine, but even as I’m writing this, six months in, I’m debating how to handle this new world. I wanted to talk to Maddow about her philosophy and also what it’s like to be “Rachel Maddow,” a woman so famous that when I told another reporter I was going to interview her, she placed her hand over her heart and said, “Omigod, I love her.” After the show, Maddow shared a little about herself.
GLAMOUR: Watching the show, I always thought, Maybe she’s a high energy person! To use a Trump phrase, she just sits there buzzing. But it’s because you literally ran there.
RACHEL MADDOW: Yeah I sat down tonight at 8:59 and eight seconds. So we had 52 seconds to mic me up and get me ready to go. That’s pretty typical. [Laughs.]
GLAMOUR: You work right up until you’re back on camera, every commercial break. What drives that?
RM: We start every show somewhere between seven and 15 minutes heavy. So we’re always having to cut stuff down and the amount of time we’ve got for each segment sort of waxes and wanes, depending on how fast I’m going, how long I keep the guests, what else happens. And so I need to be adjusting things for their time, and that will often mean that rather than trying to simplify or cut out a piece, I will scrap it altogether and write a different one. So I’m making those kinds of adjustments all the way through the show.
GLAMOUR: Do you enjoy that kind of rush?
RM: No. I don’t do it on purpose. It just happens that way. I can’t train myself out of it. Bad time management.
GLAMOUR: What’s the mission that’s driving you to take it all in everyday?
RM: I’m super interested in what’s going on. [Laughs.] That’s my fundamental orienteering point, that’s my North Star. I sort of feel like it’s me and the audience together, we’re all trying to figure this out. I don’t have any superpowers. I just read the news all day, figure out what I think is important about it, and then explain it.
GLAMOUR: Have you settled on what you think is the best way to handle the Trump era as a journalist?
RM: You can’t take statements from the White House press briefing about something the President did or did not do, or say, to the bank. The White House is not a source; they’re a subject. Our shorthand for that on the show is to cover them like they’re a “silent movie.” Only cover their actions; don’t cover their words.
GLAMOUR: But if, let’s say, Sean Spicer goes out in the briefing and he lies, I think that is an important story in itself.
RM: Yes, but then the story should be “Spicer lies.” It shouldn’t be “Spicer says North Korea was once China.” [Editor's note: Sean Spicer resigned as White House Press Secretary after this interview.]
GLAMOUR: In terms of talking about White House officials as subjects, not sources: You don’t have spokespeople on the show much.
RM: No, no, we don’t do that.
GLAMOUR: As a policy?
RM: I guess it’s a policy. I’m just not interested. I mean, I tried. I did a couple of interviews with Kellyanne Conway but then she said stuff that wasn’t true. I feel like the implicit agreement that I have with my audience is that, if I’m putting somebody on the show I am conveying to you that this is a person who has something to say that I think is worth your time. If that person says stuff that isn't true or that's nonsense or pointless jibber jabber, I’m not gonna put that person on TV.
GLAMOUR: You seem to have figured something out, given your popularity right now. You’re gonna say, “Oh well, I’m just lucky.”
GLAMOUR: [Laughs.] Can I tell you my honest, not-fake-self-deprecatory answer? I do this one thing: I do long, detailed, context-driven narratives about things that are going on in the news. I did that before, and I’ll be doing it when this time period is over. People have an appetite for that now. I’m assuming that I’m like a fad diet.
GLAMOUR: Which one are you, like the master cleanse?
RM: [Laughs.] I’m definitely something that involves no vegetables.
GLAMOUR: You read the ratings. When you eclipse Bill O’Reilly or reach a new milestone, do you have a holy-shit moment?
RM: Definitely. [But] every night there’s a chance to fail.
GLAMOUR: Failure being nobody watches?
RM: The ratings failure. The content failure, if you get something wrong—or, God forbid, you accidentally burn a source. Or drop an F-bomb.
GLAMOUR: You got flak from people, myself included, about the windup for your Trump tax returns story. With all due respect—
RM: Bring it! [Laughs.]
GLAMOUR: —I felt you overstated the news you had.
RM: Who wound it up?
GLAMOUR: You wound it up.
RM: I announced what I had—two pages of his 1040 form from 2005—said how we got them through journalist David Cay Johnston, explained what I thought was important, and walked through it. I didn’t say, “I’ve got tax returns that are gonna destroy Donald Trump!” I don’t have any regrets about it.
GLAMOUR: I also wanted to ask you about Roger Ailes. [After the death of the former Fox News head, who had been accused of sexual harassment, Maddow said she considered him a friend.] Do the allegations color your opinion of who he was?
RM: Of course. I had a constructive, interesting relationship with him as somebody I was friendly with in my business. And I’m horrified by the sexual harassment allegations about him, which seem to have been credible given the way his company reacted. Those things are equally true. I’m not being forgiving of the sexual harassment allegations against him by saying that there are other things about him, unrelated to those, that were positive. It’s just that I can understand those two things to be true about one person.
GLAMOUR: It seems like if you say anything complex about humanity, people are eager to pounce now. Things are all good or all bad.
RM: It’s like when John Boehner stepped down after the Pope’s visit. He was so visibly moved—and for him to have made that the occasion on which he left? I was like, his faith and willingness to show emotion is laudable. That doesn’t mean I like his tax policy! Somebody can have views I think are harmful and also be a decent, loving, faithful person. You can also have people who appear to have great politics who are terrible.
GLAMOUR: Is it strange, ever, how visible you are as a public figure?
RM: I can’t think about it. Being on TV turns people into monsters.
GLAMOUR: How do you avoid becoming a monster?
RM: I don’t know. I’m assuming that I am a monster. [Laughs.]
Olivia Nuzzi is the Washington correspondent for New York.* She has also written for GQ and the *Washington Post.
