The Rachel Maddow Show16 Sep 2025

Maddow: For a would-be strongman, Trump is profoundly weak

Rachel Maddow points out that Donald Trump is following the "strongman" playbook so closely, and with such a lack of originality, that his behavior in his second term has become entirely predictable. And yet, for all of his aspirations to be a strongman, his leadership suffers from some profound weaknesses, from the economy to healthcare to criminal justice to immigration.

Rachel Maddow talks with Jonathan Mahler, staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, about his reporting on the concerted effort by the Trump administration to destroy America's global leadership in cancer research. What constituency supports Donald Trump sabotaging work that not only saves lives but supports countless American jobs?

Former CDC director Susan Monarez is set to testify before the Senate this week as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is stacking the vaccine advisory board with vaccine skeptics.

And the Trump administration claimed to have burned a massive quanitity of contraceptives meant to be distributed in developing countries, with the false explanation that the contraceptives are abortifacients, only for it to be discovered that the contraceptives are still sitting in storage.

Follow Rachel Maddow on BlueSky at https://bsky.app/profile/maddow.msnbc.com

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 for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(390)

Trump restores gun rights for the mentally ill (seriously)

For reasons that are hard to fathom, included among Biden era gun rules that Donald Trump has rolled back are restrictions on people who have been adjudicated mentally ill, making it easier for them t...

7 Jul 47min

We the People America 250: Country at a Crossroads - Part 2

A special celebration of America’s 250th anniversary with Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, and Ali Velshi from MS NOW’s live community event in Philadelphia. In this hour, Rachel Maddow interviews civil righ...

4 Jul 43min

We the People America 250: Country at a Crossroads - Part 1

A special celebration of America’s 250th anniversary with Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, and Ali Velshi from MS NOW’s live community event in Philadelphia. In this hour Ali Velshi presents his acclaimed re...

4 Jul 41min

Maddow: Supreme Court greenlights expansion of Trump's corruption machine

Rachel Maddow describes how the Supreme Court conservatives radically expanded presidential power with a single ruling, even in the face of Donald Trump's unbridled corruption and abuse of the power h...

30 Jun 43min

Maddow: Advice on defiance in the age of Trump

Rachel Maddow talks with Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer, authors of "On Courage: How to be a dissident in an age of fear," about "the central question of how to live right as an American citizen ri...

29 Jun 43min

Maddow: The good news about our bad president

Rachel Maddow points out that while it's never a good thing to have a bad president, having a bad president as incompetent as Donald Trump means he is also bad at pursuing his own corrupt goals. Maddo...

23 Jun 42min

MS NOW Exclusive | Hope Comes Home: Inside the Obama Presidential Center - Part 2

MS NOW's Michele Norris interviews former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama about their time in the White House and opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Want ...

20 Jun 40min

MS NOW Exclusive | Hope Comes Home: Inside the Obama Presidential Center - Part 1

MS NOW's Michele Norris interviews former President Barack Obama about his time in office and the opening of his new presidential center in Chicago. Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow...

20 Jun 42min