Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC
There’s a terrific interview with Rachel Maddow in the upcoming first non-nude issue of Playboy magazine. Their interviews were always the best thing about the magazine anyway and they’re keeping that part of their tradition going. *slywink*
As a huge fan of Rachel’s, of course I knew a lot about her anyway, such as how she came out, how she was a Rhodes Scholar (didn’t know she was the first one to be openly gay though), how she got started in the radio/tv business, and her long relationship with her partner Susan but I learned so much more about Rachel from this interview and I like and admire her even more if that’s possible.
Not that I expected anything different but I just love how frank and honest she is about everything. Like what she thinks about Donald Trump’s success in the primary. Race-baiting nativist buffoon reality-star professional sexist!!
That said, to go from being a race-baiting nativist buffoon reality-star professional sexist to being the distant front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, even for a while, says almost less about Trump than about the Republican Party.
She doesn’t dissapoint with her opinions on the other Republican front-runners either like Cruz and Christie and Rubio and Carson.
I’m not sure I completely agree with her about what Hillary Clinton has to do to win the nomination though.
The political track we’ve seen a few times with Hillary is that when she’s ahead she gets a little loosey-goosey. When people start talking about her as inevitable, she believes she’s inevitable and sort of moves on to the next thing. You can’t do that. Hillary stops paying attention to the fundamentals of being a good candidate when she’s ahead.
I had to laugh at what she said about interviewing Hillary (bolding mine).
I did an hour-long interview with Hillary in the studio last fall, right before the televised forum I did with the candidates in South Carolina. We had no ground rules. She had no idea what I was going to ask. When she came in, she listened to me so hard it felt like she was prying my thoughts out of my brain through my eyeballs. Hillary’s got tractor beams. She was so intently focused and had a ton to say about every issue
It won’t be a popular opinion here on DKos but I tend to agree with what she thinks about Bernie’s chances.
People love him. They really do feel the Bern. He gets tens of thousands of people to turn out, but that sort of economic populism is a tough sell. The diagnosis is right; the cure isn’t easy. My prediction for Bernie: populist hero forever but hard to imagine him still being there at the convention.
Her discussion about her show is really interesting but I have to restrain myself from copying too much of it into this diary but her basic philosophy about who she’ll have on the show is so on point. When asked if she'd have Ann Coulter on she said this.
[Sighs] The one rule I have about my show is that, by virtue of being invited, I’m telling my viewers that this person has something to say that you ought to listen to. That’s the rule. Ann Coulter would not meet that requirement.
Here’s a response that way way way more people in the public domain should learn to give to interviewers.
Did you have sex with guys?
Oh right, this is Playboy [laughs] It’s none of your business!
Loved her answer to the question about Caitlyn Jenner and transgendered people, and also about her private life and her struggles with depression but you’re just going to have to read the interview yourself because I don't want to get into trouble copying too much of it here. Except for this one last blurb. It’s just so Rachel!
Do you ever think about getting into politics? What would a Maddow administration look like?
At the White House? Jesus, no! It would look like me getting sworn in and handing it over to my vice president, Amy Klobuchar, before immediately resigning. No pundit should have anything to do with the practice of politics ever, ever, ever. It would be like taking the average caller into an ESPN show and letting him go, “Snap the ball to Brady.” You just don’t do it.
Enjoy!
