Who are The Best People? They’re the people who are the best at what they do and know how to bring out the best in others. On her new podcast, Nicolle Wallace speaks to the people who inspire her. As a mom. As an American. Or sometimes just as a super fan. In the first episode, she sits down with actor Jason Bateman. His show “Smartless,” which he co-hosts with Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, is the podcast that inspired her to do her own. On this special preview, Bateman shares his journey into pod...
Jun 02, 2025•5 min
Rachel Maddow Presents – your podcast destination to discover, rediscover and binge all of Rachel Maddow’s chart-topping original podcasts in one place. Enjoy “Bag Man,” “Déjà News,” and “Ultra” – and Rachel’s new podcasts to come. Listen to all episodes of Rachel Maddow Presents now completely free, or subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free: apple.co/msnbcpremium
Dec 16, 2024•2 min
With the backing of an eccentric billionaire and powerful voices on the American far-right, a high-stakes effort to make Sen. Joseph McCarthy president surfaces at the Republican convention, as the years-long manhunt for American fascist Francis Yockey finally reaches its strange and dramatic end. Francis Yockey and Joe McCarthy become martyr figures for an ascendant and aggressive ultra-right intent on reshaping American life and politics for decades to come. This story/episode contains descrip...
Nov 26, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 4Ep. 8
With Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy facing the most serious challenge of his political life -- a looming censure vote in the U.S. Senate -- McCarthy's most fervent supporters raise up an army to fight in his defense. The effort, which draws together mainstream Republicans and McCarthy's most radical followers on the ultra right, will involve threats of violence, harassment, and an armed show of force on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. This episode was originally published on July 29, 2024....
Nov 26, 2024•51 min•Season 4Ep. 7
As Sen. Joseph McCarthy's activities -- and his troubling connections to those on the ultra right -- are exposed in the press, Democratic Sen. Lester Hunt launches a final effort to take McCarthy on and rein in his abuses. In response, McCarthy and his allies launch a coordinated blackmail campaign against Hunt, using his own family, that will ultimately end in tragedy. This episode contains descriptions that reference self-harm. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach...
Nov 26, 2024•53 min•Season 4Ep. 6
'The U.S. government’s search for American fascist Francis Yockey picks up steam as Yockey secretly returns home to America and joins forces with the growing pro-Nazi American ultra right. With investigators continually one step behind, Yockey suddenly turns up alongside one of the country's most powerful political figures who is ascending toward the height of his powers. This episode was originally published on July 15, 2024.
Nov 26, 2024•53 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Elements of the American ultra right -- including the trailing ends of the America First movement -- begin taking up a strange new cause after the war... sympathy for Nazi war criminals. The surprising efforts to oppose the Nazi war crimes trials, and advocate for individual Nazis at home and abroad, will involve some of the most high-profile voices on the American right, and will jumpstart the career of one rising Republican star, Sen. Joseph McCarthy. This episode was originally published on J...
Nov 26, 2024•44 min•Season 4Ep. 4
In a live conversation recorded at the Provincetown, MA Town Hall on May 26, Rachel and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner discuss “Ultra,” her book “Prequel,” and the rise of fascism both throughout history and in our current political moment. This episode was originally published on July 1, 2024.
Nov 26, 2024•1 hr 24 min
One of the most shocking incidents of World War II for Americans -- a cold-blooded Nazi massacre of surrendering American troops -- gets weaponized against the United States by surviving Nazis hoping to return to power, as well as a group of Americans sympathetic to their cause. A gruesome hoax around the massacre, cooked up by the Nazis, will soon rocket through American politics. This episode was originally published on June 24, 2024.
Nov 26, 2024•44 min•Season 4Ep. 3
The American government launches an all-out manhunt for a young American ultra-right fascist who harbors sympathy for the Nazis and who is actively peddling one of the world's most dangerous weapons. Francis Yockey’s journey -- and the government’s intense search for him -- will soon leave a mark on American politics for decades to come. This episode was originally published on June 17, 2024.
Nov 26, 2024•38 min•Season 4Ep. 2
The sudden and shocking suicide of a popular Democratic Senator, inside his Senate office, stuns the country and the nation’s capital. And soon, a series of bombshell revelations concerning the circumstances around the senator’s death will start to reveal a web of troubling forces at work on the American ultra right in the post-war 1950s. This episode contains descriptions that reference self-harm. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline...
Nov 26, 2024•38 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In the wake of the sedition trial's collapse, Justice Department prosecutor John Rogge travels overseas and uncovers a bombshell. He finds evidence of a coordinated effort to subvert American democracy… as well as the names of high-profile Americans involved. Rogge then returns to America... and goes rogue. Risking his career as a prosecutor, he makes public what he's discovered about the fascist threat and the Americans who supported it. And he offers a prescient warning about an American crimi...
Nov 26, 2024•58 min•Season 3Ep. 8
The largest mass sedition trial in American history churns on. And continues descending into chaos. But the dozens of sedition defendants attempting to wreak havoc on the proceedings would soon get a high-profile assist. From serving members of Congress injecting themselves into the trial and coming to the defense of the accused seditionists standing trial. Before a verdict can be reached, one final twist calls into question whether the Justice Department will see the case to the end, or cut bai...
Nov 26, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 7
The most high-profile sedition trial in American history kicks off inside a Washington, DC federal courtroom. The members of Congress who attempted to quash the investigation are now faced with a super-charged indictment and a brand new Justice Department prosecutor who is battle tested and up for the challenge. What he finds as the curtain rises on the trial, though, is something that he is wholly unprepared for: pre-planned, unmitigated chaos. This episode was originally published on November ...
Nov 26, 2024•41 min•Season 3Ep. 6
The walls begin to close in on members of Congress, and members of the America First movement, who are actively involved in a Nazi plot to spread misinformation and propaganda across the country. With a crusading newspaper reporter and a Justice Department prosecutor each peeling back the layers of the scheme, the members of Congress involved in the plot launch a desperate effort to shut down both the reporting and the federal investigation into their activities. This episode was originally publ...
Nov 26, 2024•50 min•Season 3Ep. 5
A paid agent of Hitler's government ramps up a targeted propaganda effort aimed at weakening democracy and supporting the fascist cause in America. His base of operations... the center of American democracy itself -- the United States Congress. Sitting members of Congress, and the America First movement, take part in an elaborate scheme to subvert democracy. Laundering millions of pieces of Nazi propaganda through Congress and into the hands of the American people. This episode was originally pu...
Nov 26, 2024•38 min•Season 3Ep. 4
A devastating explosion rips through a munitions plant in a small New Jersey town. And the American public is left with the chilling fact that the federal government had been warned about such an attack almost a year prior. The tip had come from a private spy ring operating in Los Angeles that was intent on doing what law enforcement had largely failed to do. Infiltrate far-right groups plotting violence across the country, and foil their plots before it was too late. This episode was originally...
Nov 26, 2024•39 min•Season 3Ep. 3
The most prominent media figure in America calls for the creation of a militia, armed Americans willing to use violence to get their way. What they want is to overthrow the U.S. government and to end democracy in this country – by force. Their plot raised alarming indications that the federal government is not up to the task of dealing with that kind of homegrown threat. This episode was originally published on October 10, 2022.
Nov 26, 2024•39 min•Season 3Ep. 2
It started with a plane crash. The tragic, mysterious crash of a commercial airliner in the summer of 1940 left a scene of devastation in rural Virginia -- and a series of unanswered questions. The cause of the crash was unclear. Among the dozens of people killed was a sitting U.S. senator. His presence on the flight and the strange circumstances surrounding the crash would end up revealing threats to American democracy itself. This episode was originally published on October 10, 2022....
Nov 26, 2024•37 min•Season 3Ep. 1
An authoritarian ruler moves to invade a smaller country and take it for himself. People around the world rally to that country’s defense. European and American leaders grapple with how to stop the invasion and prevent a wider war. But this isn’t Russia and Ukraine in 2022. It’s Italy and Ethiopia in 1935. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson explore what we can learn from the very different choices made decades ago, when the world faced a similar challenge. Featuring: Deborah Cohen , the Richar...
Nov 26, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 6
As conservative governors try to score political points by depositing busloads and planeloads of migrants in liberal cities, it can seem like an unprecedented exercise in cruelty. But it’s a page ripped from an earlier playbook in U.S. politics, one that was forgotten for decades for a very good reason. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson revisit the racist Reverse Freedom Rides of the 1960s. Featuring: Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson , Michael and Denise ‘68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies a...
Nov 26, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 5
A new president with authoritarian tendencies packs the nation’s highest court, which then outlaws abortion – sparking not just a backlash, but a new coalition for democracy and the rule of the law. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson explore how events abroad in just the last few years might help us understand what is happening now in the United States. Featuring: Anne Applebaum , staff writer for The Atlantic and author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism Marta Le...
Nov 26, 2024•44 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Republicans claim the election was stolen. They use those claims to justify suppressing people’s right to vote. All of it happening amid a national reckoning on race. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson tell the story of a time uncannily similar to our own – in the early 1960s. And how it’s both a parallel to our present moment and the origin of conflicts playing out today. Featuring Guests: Rick Perlstein, historian, author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American ...
Nov 26, 2024•42 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Long before Governor Ron DeSantis declared a new war on wokeness, Florida lawmakers in the 1950s and 60s tried going after the NAACP, suspected communists and gay people in Florida schools and universities. The lawmakers upended life for countless numbers of their fellow Floridians before being upended themselves by their own zeal for the cause. Now that DeSantis is bringing this playbook to a presidential campaign, Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson ask what we can learn from the last time Fl...
Nov 26, 2024•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
A violent right-wing mob interrupts lawmakers formalizing the transfer of power to a new leader. But this isn’t Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, but rather Paris on February 6, 1934. Rachel Maddow and Isaac-Davy Aronson explore that earlier event, the way it reverberates to this day and how it could help us understand what January 6 will mean for the U.S. Featuring guests: Jonathan Katz, author of Gangsters of Capitalism Alice Kaplan, Sterling Professor of French at Yale University, author ...
Nov 26, 2024•31 min•Season 2Ep. 1
In 1973, in the throes of the Watergate scandal, three young federal prosecutors uncovered a separate criminal scheme being run inside the White House — the sitting vice president, Spiro Agnew, was taking envelopes stuffed with cash in exchange for official acts as an elected official. If Nixon left office, Agnew would be the next President. And so, what would happen if the President was charged with a federal crime? Worse yet, what if he was convicted? Now that Donald Trump has been charged wit...
Nov 26, 2024•47 min
Disgraced Vice President Spiro T. Agnew officially becomes a private citizen and addresses the nation one last time... as a convicted criminal. Agnew continues his attacks on the press and the prosecutors right to the end. But his sudden resignation leaves questions-- unanswered-- that echo 45 years later. Can a President or Vice President actually be criminally indicted while in office? And if not, what sort of pressure can be brought to bear... to force them out? This episode was originally pu...
Nov 26, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 7
A secret murder plot directed by the President? A fear of political assassination by the CIA. Facing the prospect of becoming the first Vice President in American history to resign in disgrace... Spiro T. Agnew tries to set the stage for his own exit from office. With wild claims of death threats that forced him out. Surprise revelations of what Agnew was doing with all of his money. And a suspense-filled final day that leaves the sitting Vice President... a convicted felon. This episode was ori...
Nov 26, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 6
With his own Justice Department on the verge of indicting him, Vice President Spiro Agnew attempts a last-ditch effort to survive. A Constitutional crisis-inducing argument that even if prosecutors have evidence of his crimes, he can't be indicted anyway... the power of the White House protects him. With President Nixon himself about to go down in Watergate, it's now on one man's shoulders-- the Attorney General-- to come up with a way to remove a criminal Vice President... before he ascends to ...
Nov 26, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 5
After learning that his own Justice Department is investigating his crimes, Vice President Spiro Agnew embarks on a secret, behind-the-scenes effort... to obstruct justice. To use his power inside the White House to interfere with the investigation and shut it down. It’s a scheme that involves President Nixon himself, members of Nixon's inner circle, and it has never been known to the prosecutors investigating the case... even now, 45 years later. This episode was originally published on Novembe...
Nov 26, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 4
