Trump & Putin’s Alaska Date, Gay Marriage Challenged, and Guest Co-Host Rachel Maddow

Summary

Pivot: Trump & Putin’s Alaska Date, Gay Marriage Challenged, and Guest Co-Host Rachel Maddow

Released on August 15, 2025

In this dynamic episode of Pivot, hosts Kara Swisher and Rachel Maddow delve deep into some of the most pressing issues in today's political and social landscape. From President Trump's controversial Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin to the looming challenges against gay marriage, the conversation is both sharp and insightful, peppered with humor and candid banter.

---

Introduction and Opening Banter (00:01 - 02:27)

The episode begins with a light exchange between Kara Swisher and Rachel Maddow, setting a friendly yet witty tone. The hosts joke about launching a skincare line and tease each other about their styles and appearances, establishing their chemistry and rapport.

Kara Swisher:
"Our fantastic haircuts. Let me just say, welcome to the host of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow."
(02:31)

Rachel Maddow:
"We should solve crimes or do crimes? Yes, both."
(03:19)

---

Media Landscape and Entrepreneurial Insights (03:27 - 10:26)

Rachel Maddow discusses her show's transition back to a once-a-week format, emphasizing the intensive preparation that goes into each episode. The conversation shifts to the evolving media landscape, with both hosts highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit needed to succeed.

Rachel Maddow:
"We're spinning off with a huge, standalone, newly built news gathering organization that is designed specifically for our purposes and nothing else."
(06:28)

Kara Swisher:
"I was a terrible employee. I was like, you fucking idiot all the time. And I was tired of saying that to people."
(11:25)

They further discuss the importance of owning content and making independent decisions to create media that truly resonates with audiences.

---

Historical Context of 'America First' and Its Modern Implications (20:42 - 33:25)

Rachel Maddow provides a comprehensive historical analysis of the "America First" rhetoric, tracing its origins back to the pre-World War II America First Committee. She draws parallels between past and present, highlighting how the ideology has evolved and resurfaced in contemporary politics.

Rachel Maddow:
"The America First Committee was one of the largest anti-war organizations ever in the US, trying to block FDR from aiding Britain."
(20:42)

Kara Swisher:
"There were senators that put these things forced, the sterile, forced sterilization of Jews, of blacks, things like that."
(22:45)

Maddow warns against the resurgence of authoritarian tendencies, emphasizing the normalization of military presence in American cities and the erosion of democratic institutions.

Rachel Maddow:
"This president does not see bounds on the presidency set by democratic processes... He wants to autocratically rule the country in every aspect."
(33:25)

---

President Trump's Summit with Vladimir Putin (47:09 - 55:06)

A significant portion of the episode revolves around President Trump's upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The hosts critically analyze the implications of this summit, questioning its effectiveness and potential outcomes.

Kara Swisher:
"That's grotesque. Trump also spoke with European leaders and Ukraine's President Zelensky ahead of the summit."
(47:12)

Rachel Maddow:
"What Putin gets? Putin gets a trip to Alaska... a one-on-one meeting without Ukraine present."
(50:22)

They express skepticism about the summit's potential to bring about meaningful progress in the Ukraine conflict, labeling it as an embarrassment for the U.S. presidency.

---

Challenges to Gay Marriage and Supreme Court Implications (55:06 - 63:35)

The discussion shifts to the Supreme Court's challenges against the 2015 decision granting equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. The hosts debate the legal and social ramifications of Kim Davis's appeal to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.

Kara Swisher:
"This is like a naked grab for overturning the gay marriage Supreme Court decision."
(56:47)

Rachel Maddow:
"The anti gay movement senses it's got the wind in its sails, but I don't think this is the case by which they're going to do it."
(58:28)

They highlight the precarious balance between legal strategies and public opinion, expressing concern over potential setbacks for marriage equality.

---

The Far Right and Future Political Landscape (64:13 - 70:57)

Maddow and Swisher examine the fragmentation within the far-right movements, noting the inherent infighting that has historically prevented sustained power. They discuss the implications of this fractiousness for future governance and political stability.

Rachel Maddow:
"The far right is inherently fractious... they're constantly schisming against each other."
(70:47)

Kara Swisher:
"They're technially broken. Rachel, please. You'll popularize it if you will. Technically broken."
(70:57)

This segment underscores the challenges the far right faces in maintaining cohesion without a unifying figure like Trump.

---

Predictions and Closing Thoughts (73:38 - 82:21)

In the final segment, Maddow shares her predictions regarding ongoing political scandals and the potential impacts of President Trump's actions on the U.S. democratic framework.

Rachel Maddow:
"The takeover of DC is not about crime. The attempt to nullify the census is all about accruing more power."
(78:44)

Kara Swisher:
"Technically broken. Rachel, I think, actually your prediction was gonna be that you were going to the UFC fight at the White House."
(76:45)

The hosts conclude by reiterating the importance of strong institutions and citizen activism in combating authoritarian tendencies, encouraging listeners to stay informed and engaged.

---

Notable Quotes

• Kara Swisher:
  "What does what he's doing mean for the country's durability and how we're responding."
  (35:03)

• Rachel Maddow:
  "The crisis that we've got in our country is a crisis of elite cowardice."
  (38:07)

• Kara Swisher:
  "She's called mtg. A rabid dog and a lying, fake Christian whore."
  (67:11)

• Rachel Maddow:
  "I think that's nothing to sneeze at and I'm excited to see how it develops."
  (10:14)

---

Conclusion

This episode of Pivot offers a compelling blend of critical analysis and conversational depth, addressing significant political maneuvers and their broader societal impacts. Swisher and Maddow adeptly navigate complex topics, providing listeners with valuable insights and a nuanced understanding of current events.

For those seeking a comprehensive overview of the intersection between technology, politics, and media, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Kara Swisher]

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[Rachel Maddow]

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[Kara Swisher]

In case you're interested, a report from WeWork. Every white woman in America is doing a skincare line.

[Rachel Maddow]

Just saying, Kara. That's the one thing we haven't done together yet.

[Kara Swisher]

I know.

[Rachel Maddow]

Let's launch a skincare line for people who don't care about skincare.

[Kara Swisher]

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media podcast network. I'm Kara Swisher. Welcome back to.

[Rachel Maddow]

Scot Free August.

[Kara Swisher]

This is possibly the most badass day of Scot Free August. My co host and I are the Al Pacino and Robert De Niro of lesbian journalists. Respected, feared and often confused for one another because of our hair. Our fantastic haircuts. Let me Just say, welcome to the host of MSNBC's the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh, Kara, I'm so glad. When we made that decision to go bulk at the barbershop, where we would always go two for one, I just think it was great for both of us. I mean, we were both 24. Who could have foreseen that? It would have been the start of our paths in life.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. And we often dress like each other too. And people are always like, are you Rachel Maddow? No, I'm not tall enough. People don't know Rachel's quite tall.

[Rachel Maddow]

That's the thing. That's the secret that helps us twin in a way that will help us ultimately commit great crimes.

[Kara Swisher]

That is great because we will be.

[Rachel Maddow]

The alibi for one another.

[Kara Swisher]

We should do crimes. Should we solve crimes or do crimes? Yes, both.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yes, Kara. Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Rachel Maddow]

All the things.

[Kara Swisher]

We have so much to talk about. This is so good. This is. Everybody, let me just say we're gonna gay it up for you here a little bit, but we have a lot to talk about. But how is it going on your show? You're back to once a week, is that correct?

[Rachel Maddow]

Yes. So I'm once a week, Monday nights on msnbc and then I spend every other day of the week working on stuff that people can't see yet. And so it seems like I'm doing nothing, but actually I'm working harder than I've ever worked.

[Kara Swisher]

So you're not lazy?

[Rachel Maddow]

I'm not lazy, no.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm just curious. How do you plan that day? When do you do it on Sunday, I was trying to think, when do you plan it and how do you decide? Cause it's the one day you're like that. Jon Stewart does the same thing. The one day, both.

[Rachel Maddow]

Monday I read all week and then Sunday is a full bore, like 10 or 12 hour workday when I'm reading intensively and prepping and making decisions, including about guests and stuff. Although I don't like to pre plan guests before the day of the show if I don't have to. I don't.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, because you want it to be fresh. Yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

Cause I'm not trying to do a week in review. I'm trying to do a good. Here's your Monday newscast. And so I'm never great at lining up the big guest for the big get interview weeks in advance. I just don't do that. But I read all day and then Monday I work all day and I mean, it's kind of. It's not that different from when I was. The prep time is not that different from when I was doing five days a week. It's just that my whole Sunday is dedicated as well.

[Kara Swisher]

You went from one day a week to five during the first hundred days of the presidency. Do you feel like you need to come back and do more? I know a lot of your viewers think that.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, I think doing the hundred days was the right thing to do. I think a lot changed in our country very rapidly over those first hundred days and I was glad to be there every day for it. I also think it was MSNBC kind of signaling to the audience, like, hey, this is not a normal presidential transition. This is potentially. If this is going to be a transition from one kind of government and one kind of country into another, we need to cover it in a way that is not pretending that this is normal. And so I like the instinct at the company to ask me to come back and do that, to signal that this is a special sort of time, I think was correct. But I don't wanna do five days a week and I won't and they don't want me to.

[Kara Swisher]

They've moved on, They've moved on. They have gotten more people. But do you ever feel like, oh my God, something happens and I gotta get in there or.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, and I'm. I guest on other people's shows and if it ever, ever tip over into special coverage, I'm able to come back at any time and lead that stuff. So I just. I think it's a pretty. It was hard to arrive at the system that we're in. We had to iterate a bunch of sort of different attempts at it before we arrived at this. But I think this is. I think we're in the right. I think we're in the right place. I think this is. I think this is stable and sustainable and this is gonna be what it's gonna be like for the foreseeable future.

[Kara Swisher]

Right now, may I ask you, are you excited about your spinoff Aversant? What a great name.

[Rachel Maddow]

Versant. Talk to your doctor about, you know.

[Kara Swisher]

Results may vary, you could have a rash.

[Rachel Maddow]

You know, in terms of the practical impact of it. It's been all kind of upside so far. Yeah, I mean, we're hiring. What other news organization is hiring tons of reporters and correspondents and editors? And we're standing up this whole news gathering operation which was funded as part of. Well funded as part of the spin. And in the end, once that is stood up we will no longer have to compete with NBC News's properties for the news gathering, the product of the news gathering organization, which we otherwise had to. I mean, if we're all covering the same outbreak of war or whatever it is, you know, if we're competing with Nightly and the Today show and Meet the Press and it's the NBC News News gathering organization, we're always going to get whatever's left over. And this case, it's all we can apply our own instincts, our own queries, our own priorities to getting stuff that we need from reporters and correspondents. And so it's gonna be better once that's all stood up.

[Kara Swisher]

It has to be. I like the cut of your jib here, because half the people. I like that expression. I like to say it a lot. I like the cut of your jib.

[Rachel Maddow]

I didn't even know I had a jib.

[Kara Swisher]

Everyone has a jib, Rachel. It's a sailing metaphor. A jib. Do you ever sail? No, obviously you don't. A jib. It's a jib.

[Rachel Maddow]

More of a rowboat type.

[Kara Swisher]

I like rowboats, too. When I was in, I went out with someone and they bought me a rowboat once and we called it a relation dinghy. But it's not a relationship. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. I'm here all week. One of the things I think is exciting, actually, I've been doing a few shows on the podcast about what works in media now versus the whole doom. The doomness of it. And I had Oliver Darcy on. I had Katie Drummond from Wired. I had a bunch of different people on it. And the whole idea was that things are working like whether it's Mehdi Hasan even on the right, whether you like her or not, Megyn Kelly. There's all this exciting kind of stuff. And one of the MSNBC people either split into two groups, people who are sort of this is the end kind of thing, or this is an opportunity to be entrepreneurial, which I think you're talking about. Right. And it's opportunity to make things people want.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's a. First of all, we make a ton of money. Second of all, we're spinning off with a huge, standalone, newly built news gathering organization that is designed specifically for our purposes and nothing else. We have an incredibly loyal, very large audience. And we've got. And we're. And we're universally platformed on a device called the television, which Americans use despite media reports to the contrary. And so I just feel like I'm super, super happy to see in particular the success of some of the people you just described. Like Wired has just been killing it. Oliver Darcy doing his status media stuff is great. It's better than anybody else who's doing the media beat from any of the legacy news organizations.

[Kara Swisher]

Absolutely. That's cause he's not just writing down what the big say.

[Rachel Maddow]

Exactly. And that is forcing. I actually think it's forcing media reporting in legacy news organizations to kind of up their game a little bit because he's so scrappy and good at it. And I. And you know, I think there's a lot that's positive. The business side of it is a challenge for everybody, but it's also unique to everybody. And MSNBC on that side has a bunch of unique advantages. We're in a spin that is very well funded. That is, you know, once it's going to be public shares eventually, when Versant does that, that means that's going to sort of lock into a system where there's several years where they can't, you know, do anything dramatic like sell us or anything like that. But right now we're making money on.

[Kara Swisher]

Time is not yet.

[Rachel Maddow]

No, we make a lot of money. We have a big audience and we're growing substantively in terms of what we can offer the audience. I just think that's nothing to sneeze at and I'm excited to see how it develops.

[Kara Swisher]

Good. Cause I think that's a good attitude. I think if you sit around and doom scroll about your industry, it's just not true. There's all kinds of entrepreneurial stuff and it gives you the opportunity if you pull away from bigger organizations like you have to make stuff people want.

[Rachel Maddow]

Anyway, speaking of, before we move on from that, you yourself are a media mogul. Kara Swisher.

[Kara Swisher]

That's commissary.

[Rachel Maddow]

But do you feel like you've wired, you've figured out what makes the most sense for you in terms of owning stuff and multi platforms and the kind of partnerships that you have?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, Rachel, if I were, I helped Dave Jorgensen leave the Washington Post because he's the one who makes all those videos. And he also was on the podcast because he's different. He's doing videos and trying to create a video oriented TikTok oriented media company. Yes, I feel much better. As I often say, I was a terrible employee. I was like, you fucking idiot all the time. And I was tired of saying that to people, especially a certain kind of guy. Right. It was often a guy and sometimes a woman. And I just was like, I'll make what I'LL make. And if people want to eat it, they can eat it. And then I get to make all the decisions. I also own everything. If I were you, I would own everything. You do own a lot of your stuff, Rachel. But I would own, like, everything I make. And that way I can make decisions and then you partner with people. In my case, it's Vox Media. But, you know, over time, for example, in Pivot, Scott and I have gotten a bigger piece of the pie because it's our pie, right? And. But it's great to have partners that help you do things like advertising and distribution and producing that you may not want to do or they can do better. And so it creates a really great ecosystem of everyone's interests are aligned, and then.

[Rachel Maddow]

And when you own it, you can make decisions that are both temporally specific and specific in terms of equity and all that other stuff and control as needed, but you can enter and leave those partnerships while you still own everything.

[Kara Swisher]

Right? And that's what I'm advising everybody, like, everyone who, like. I get a lot of. Like when they wrote that very nice piece on the New York Times about me, which was a little too nice, Rachel. I'll be honest with you. It was a big.

[Rachel Maddow]

You're the backlash to your own profile.

[Kara Swisher]

Myself, I'm like, come on, you couldn't find one bad thing? I'll give you a list of people who don't like me, but they're always blind quotes, so they're not any good. You know, I would say one of the things that was important in that piece was getting people inspired. But one of the reporter came to me and said, who's lovely? Ben Mullen? And he said, you know, I've heard you're being paid to advise people to leave media. Like, I get a fee. I was like, if I got a fee, I'd be so fucking rich. I have people call me right now on my telephone. I have seven people who want to leave media and want to try something. Wow. And so what I try to do is the ones I think are going to be good, I say, here's what it takes, like a Jim Acosta or whoever. You got to be entrepreneurial. You've got to be. You've gotta work harder than you did. Cause it's all for you. Right? And I think that's the hard part. And some people who come to me, I'm like, yeah, you should stay where you are. You should stay right where you are.

[Rachel Maddow]

You're giving people the Rosetta Stone here to interpret your advice and Feature, anybody?

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's only a few people. But, you know, like, I just was with Dina Brown and she's done amazing stuff at her substack and I think her writing is better. Paul Krugman, I think, has really come alive. He's suddenly really great. There's all kinds of people, and I think once you find your. If it's really good, people will buy it.

[Rachel Maddow]

And it's all. And media's not all one thing. I mean, I have a production company now in addition to being an employee at msnbc, but at that production company, I'm not doing cable news at that production company. I'm doing documentaries, scripted shows. Actually, podcasts are all through msnbc. So it's the documentaries, scripted shows. I'm producing a play with them, some other stuff, feature films, but that's all. It's all different. So my employee status is podcasts and TV shows at msnbc, which is all the stuff for which I'm still best known. Everything else that I'm doing, I'm very low on the learning curve and I'm figuring out how to do it. And I don't know if I will succeed at any of those things, but I'm trying. But I'm doing that on my own steam.

[Kara Swisher]

Which one do you like better?

[Rachel Maddow]

I like them both. I'm better at one than I am at the other.

[Kara Swisher]

I mean, you're used to it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. And so. But I like working at something that I'm not great at and learning. So that's what I'm. The problem is, is that I. I can't. Once you're better at something, it's easier to turn it on and off to compartmentalize. Now I am working. Now I am not. When you're not good at something, there's the constant panic about failure, which means you work 24 hours a day, which means your girlfriend gets mad at you.

[Kara Swisher]

I've heard. Wait a minute, I've heard that. I have that issue with my wife too. Speaking of Hollywood, I just want to note the New York Times just called my all time favorite movie, Road House, the best bad movie. I don't know if you know, that's my all time favorite.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh, wow movie.

[Kara Swisher]

Road House was Patrick Swayze, not the Jake Gyllenhaal. That was pathetic.

[Rachel Maddow]

The Jake Gyllenhaal is the remake.

[Kara Swisher]

The remake.

[Rachel Maddow]

And in the Patrick Swayze version, was there also a lot of shirtlessness?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, of course. Obviously. He did tai chi in the shirtlessness. Are you kidding? And it was mostly him, by the way. It was not the ladies. There was a lot of shirtless ladies also. But he was the. The prime piece of beefcake there going on. And I love that movie. Largely cause of the lines like, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Just stuff like that. Which is. I say that a lot and no one was saying it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Profound. It's a good thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Profound.

[Rachel Maddow]

People go, look, where's that in the Bible?

[Kara Swisher]

I love Patrick Swayze. It's such a great fire that I don't understand it myself.

[Rachel Maddow]

Have you ever seen the amazingly crazy Stars TV show called Hightown, which is about drugs in Provincetown?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Rachel Maddow]

The lesbian.

[Kara Swisher]

Hello. Hello.

[Rachel Maddow]

So what about in the Pimp, the terrible, like, evil shirtless pimp character? Swayze.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

And there's no reason in the entire. There's a lot of things about High Town that are inexplicable, but one of them is that, why is the pimp shirtless? Like, the pimp is shirtless at night. The pimp is shirtless during the day. I'm convinced the pimp is always shirtless because he is Swayze.

[Kara Swisher]

Because that is Swayze. Patrick Swayze. You're right.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yes. It's a meta. Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Tom Cruise always takes his shirt off, too. There's several actors. But in Patrick Swayze's case. I see the point. I get the point. I understand why there's no shirt. Let me ask you a question. Do you have a best bad movie or show you like lately?

[Rachel Maddow]

I got a. I like High Town. Gotta say, Hightown. Yeah. You know, I'm a real old lesbian who doesn't see a lot of movies and stuff. Like, my favorite movie is Suddenly, which is an assassination movie starring Frank Sinatra that all takes place one room and really ought to have been a play. Like I. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Frank Sinner. Back to Frank Sidon. Yes.

[Rachel Maddow]

Like, that's my. That's my era.

[Kara Swisher]

I love Patton.

[Rachel Maddow]

I love Lawrence of Arabia. Like, I'm a lot older than I seem. I was born 74 years old.

[Kara Swisher]

Excellent. That is from the beginning. From the get.

[Rachel Maddow]

From the beginning. I came out nearsighted.

[Kara Swisher]

I was 37. Interesting.

[Rachel Maddow]

I was born.

[Kara Swisher]

I was like, here's how we're gonna do things. But 37 and real bossy. So you. So. So suddenly I'm gon. It's good.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's really good. I like political thrillers is kind of my thing. I like psychological thriller stuff. And, you know, it's great. It's really good. Frank Sinatra actually did some. I loved him in the first Manchurian Candidate.

[Kara Swisher]

No, he's great. That's a creepy movie. Angela Lansbury's so good in that movie.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh, God, she's fantastic.

[Kara Swisher]

She's so good in that.

[Rachel Maddow]

I love an evil, like a totally villainous to the core. Pretty lady.

[Kara Swisher]

Pretty lady. She is. Julie Andrews should be a villain. Has she ever been a villain that's sort of in that genre?

[Rachel Maddow]

Ooh. Hello, Julie Andrews Fans of the pivot audience, tell us what Julie Andrews Entertainment, please.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm sure she's listening very closely right now. Although I do have a lot of weird celebrity fans, which is strange. I'm sure you have a million of them. They love the Rachel Maddow. Let me give you one recommendation, which I mentioned. Every show. See Hunting Wives, please, on Netflix. Do it yourself.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh, this is a new reality series.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it is not. It is series Malin Ackerman and Brittany Snowstor, and it is about maga. MAGA ladies in Texas who shoot a lot of guns. And they're very Christian and very maga and Trumpy, and they dress up in what you'd imagine Texas ladies would dress up in. And they're all lesbians. Let me just. Suddenly, they take this turn into lesbian, and you're like. But then they do it too much. You're like, stop with the lesbians. Like, there's way too much and then there's murder.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's not. You just like reading a lesbian vibe into it. They actually in the show.

[Kara Swisher]

No, my friend.

[Rachel Maddow]

Go get.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's moving towards softcore porn in a way that's really good. I actually was like, you need to stop. We need some more plot here. Like, stop. Make it out, you two. And Malin Ackerman dives into the role. Dives into the role like you've never seen.

[Rachel Maddow]

So when Scott did his last episode of Pivot before Scot Free August, his advice to you and your co hosts while he was away was he wanted a lot more lesbian content.

[Kara Swisher]

There we go.

[Rachel Maddow]

And now here you are.

[Kara Swisher]

Here you are.

[Rachel Maddow]

We've done it. You're bringing me new lesbian content I didn't have.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm just telling you. Just text me after you watch it, all right? Trust me on this one, all right? We've got a lot. Now we're getting to serious stuff because Trump is having quite a week with his federal takeover, dc, a review of the Smithsonian, and a meeting with Putin first. I am a huge fan of your work on the 30s and 40s. All the stuff you've done. I just re listened to prequel, which I adore, and all the characters, and I assume that's what you're making movies about because there's so many great characters there. We've been hearing Trump using this America first line for years, but it's coming into play more than ever in his second term as if it's fresh and new. He slapped the label on foreign policy, trade, immigration. He told the Atlantic a few months ago that the America first means whatever he says it does. He said that he was the one that developed it. Obviously not. So in both Ultra, your podcast and your. Which we. You've been on talking about this in your book prequel. You talk a lot about this and the deep, deep roots of this, what's happening now in the US which we have forgotten about in a lot of ways. So talk a little bit about the backstory and this rhetoric at this moment in time.

[Rachel Maddow]

So the America First Committee was a real thing. It only existed for about 15 months, but it was 15 really important months. It was from I think September of 1940 until December of 41, Pearl Harbor. But they formed, it was one of the largest, largest anti war organizations ever in the US and they formed to basically try to block FDR from affording any assistance to Britain when Britain was fending off a Nazi invasion. And their basic idea, at least their public facing idea, was that we were impregnable, we were protected by our oceans, nobody was ever going to attack us. And who cares if the Nazis took all of Europe? Europe kind of sucks at any point.

[Kara Swisher]

Why should we give money to them? Why should we give money to them?

[Rachel Maddow]

We shouldn't give money to them. And if we give any money to them, they're going to plow under every fourth American BO. It'll get us into the. It'll get us into the, into the war. And we don't want to be in another war after World War I. That was the public facing line. The problem the America First Committee had is that even as they were huge and they had all these really respectable people associated with them, it was founded by the guy who was the heir to the Quaker Oats fortune. They kept slipping into kind of liking the Nazis and blaming everything on the Jews. And the American public eventually came to see that, especially when Charles Lindbergh, who was the most famous man in America, not named Roosevelt, when Lindbergh became their spokesman and started flat out saying, this is just the Jews trying to get us into the war and the Jews are the big problem in the world. So the America First Committee, I mean, has a short, very pungent history and Then what The idea of America first became after that is even worse. After the America First Committee disbanded following Pearl harbor. We then later got other iterations of that concept, like the America First Party, which in 1944 campaigned explicitly on the promise of deporting and or sterilizing all Jews in America. So that's the history of America First.

[Kara Swisher]

And there were senators that put these things forced, the sterile, forced sterilization of Jews, of blacks, things like that. The insidious nature of it, even if it wasn't called America first was the thing I was thinking of is the idea that first of all there was Nazi infiltration in our country, very significantly through Congress and also throughout media and everything else. But it was much more insidious. America first in a lot of ways. Cause it had all things attached to it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. I mean, that phrase that plowing under every fourth American boy, that originated in Berlin in Goebbels office. And then it made its way into the speeches of an anti FDR America First American politician. And there was a huge. One of the things that Ultra and prequel are about is this huge multimillion dollar at the time, which makes it, I mean, in 1940s dollars, multimillion dollar secret Nazi propaganda effort that was shunted through Congress. They used the Congressional franking privilege to mail out millions of pieces of Nazi propaganda to American homes using members of the Senate and members of Congress who were on the Nazi payroll in the lead up to World War II. And it's a forgotten history. I think because of World War II. It seems to over. You know, that overshadows everything that went before. But we had a big Nazi sympathizing and American fascist movement here in this country.

[Kara Swisher]

But continued after the war through McCarthy. Which is what the second season of Ultra is about. Correct. I mean that it didn't stop. So this never stopped. This is one of the things that I took away from your book is that so much as, you know, it begins with Gogols, who was, you know, I think they had stolen some ideas from us and Jim Crow or borrowed or whatever and thought that was a great thing. And then they put it back here and continued. That's what the lost history part. I mean, the biggest figure. There's two figures in your books that I think are. So McCarthy gets all the attention, right? Always. Cause he's such a tragic and horrible figure. But two people I thought was Lawrence Dennis and Ojon Raaghi. Two opposites, those similar.

[Rachel Maddow]

Lawrence Dennis was considered to be the intellectual godfather of American fascism and was like he was receiving money from the Germans and they brought him over to observe Nuremberg rallies and blah, blah, blah. He was connected to all sorts of American politicians and to these fascist movements, including the violent fascist move.

[Kara Swisher]

Also half African American. Correct.

[Rachel Maddow]

He was secretly black and passed until the very end of his life while meanwhile articulating the beautiful fascist American future.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Rachel Maddow]

The Nazis, when you say that they got ideas from Jim Crow. The Nazis used. They actually sent an agent to the University of Arkansas Law School to study Jim Crow, the liminal legal law, how to set it up. And then they used it as the basis for the Nuremberg Law, the idea of second class citizenship based on racial purity. So that's on the dark side. And then Ojan Raghi was a wunderkind prosecutor who brought sedition charges against Dennis and against these American fascists who were both working with the Nazis and trying to undermine the American war effort. And he was all but destroyed for having done it, including being fired in the Justice Department for having had the temerity to name the members of Congress who are involved in this scheme and.

[Kara Swisher]

Write a report that got lost, really to history for 25 years.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kara Swisher]

And then it didn't matter by then. Cause everyone had moved on. Right?

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, correct. They didn't publish it till the 60s.

[Kara Swisher]

I gotta tell you, the resonance to today that prequel particularly sticks with has stuck with me so hard because it feels like there's so many links to today. How do you. And one of the things you have these heroes like O. John Rogers or Leon Lewis in Los Angeles. Leon Lewis in Los Angeles, who also did all this sort of secret spy work against these people, against these fascists and militias and things like that. Who is that today? And could you link them to what's happening now?

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't think there's any. You sound like, is there a problem?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, there's a noisy man, but go ahead.

[Rachel Maddow]

A noisy man.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Sorry.

[Rachel Maddow]

I just saw you kill him with your eyes. It was amazing.

[Kara Swisher]

I'll stop doing that.

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't think there are exact parallels, but I do think that there are sort of inspirational currents. So one story that hasn't had a lot of attention that I've sort of been watching percolate recently is that there's been a lot of stealing from armories and military bases that's been happening recently. That was something that happened in the lead up to World War II, as well as violent fascist groups like the Silver Shirts and the Christian Front and others not only recruited from the military and from the National Guard, but also used essentially insider threat people inside the military to steal US military weapons for the use in what they hoped would be a violent overthrow of the U.S. government. And so that happened. That's happening now very sort of quietly. It's only getting a little bit of attention that happened there. That was, was in part what led Leon Lewis, who was a World War I veteran, to get other World War I veterans, German American, World War I veterans, to go infiltrate those groups to figure out what was happening. They could not get law enforcement interested in it because these guys proclaimed themselves to be anti communists and so therefore law enforcement liked the idea of them. They couldn't get law enforcement interested and so they pursued it and pursued it and pursued it themselves. They publicized their findings. They ultimately went to US Navy Intelligence, which was willing to prosecute them in part because it was military facilities that are being burgled in order to get these guys their weapons. So that sort of intrepidity by a self styled civilian spy. I don't know that we've got that sort of singular hero right now, but when I see people who are building apps and building online networks to watch what ICE is doing and to monitor effectively the secret police operations that we've got going right now, I see some of those same instincts sort of in the American character.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, you were saying they aren't the same. I mean, right now, for example, Trump. Let's go right to this. Trump says he's looking to extend the 30 day federal takeover of Washington DC's police and could bypass Congress declaring a national emergency. I guess he could decide what a national emergency is. His comments come as National Guard troops arrive in D.C. with 800 guards and 500 federal agents set to be deployed in total. They're often in places that are very loud, although they're over on 14th street where they're being punished with sandwiches.

[Rachel Maddow]

That guy a felony for hurling the sandwich.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, I'm like, I feel like I wish I had done that. D.C. mayor Mira Bowser is calling all of this an authoritarian push. Although she initially said the city could benefit from it. She's being a little bit quiet about it. U.S. attorney for D.C. jeanine Pirro, she of the Box of Wine, wrote in a Washington Post op ed that she's working to overturn some local laws so juvenile offenders would be prosecuted. I just, you know, a lot of the stuff you wrote about was implicit. It was quietly being done. Although the silver shirts they appeared in, all these people appeared in Madison Square Garden. They had all kinds of rallies it was very explicit, but nothing like it. Wasn't the government doing this. Now he's also focusing his attention on DC's landscaping, saying, we need to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I agree with that. I'm gonna agree we have shitty grasses.

[Rachel Maddow]

I think America can actually come together around the idea of fine grass.

[Kara Swisher]

Fine grass, yeah. So talk to me a little bit about what's happening here, because this is explicit. In the time you were writing about it, the government itself wasn't doing things like that or was, in a way, in certain areas, like concentration camps and things like that for the Japanese.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. I mean, fascist groups in the United States before World War II wanted an authoritarian takeover of our country in which there would not be the American system of government anymore. There would be a strongman leader who would run things at his own whim with autocratic capabilities and would serve the white gentile population above all else and kick everybody else out of the country. That's what fascist groups before World War II wanted in this country, which is why they wanted us to not only to either not fight the Nazis or to fight with the Nazis rather than to go over there and fight them.

[Kara Swisher]

And they didn't like democracy explicitly. They talked about it, Lawrence.

[Rachel Maddow]

They thought democracy was decadent, and it was a way for liberals and women, women and, well, minorities of any kind have any say. These are folks who don't believe in sharing power with people different than them. They think that they should be able to have a say on their own terms of what happens, not only in government, but in everything. And so now, in our generation, in our time, we have an elected authoritarian leader who doesn't just want to control the executive branch. He wants to control, you know, universities, their curriculum and their admissions and their, you know, student discipline policies. And he wants to decide what economists work at what banks. And he wants to control businesses. He wants to control the Smithsonian. He wants to control high school sports. He wants to control the legal profession. He wants to control, you know, what's on television and what's in the news, and guess what? Like, this is what they were after. And this is a president who does not see bounds on the presidency set by democratic processes, but he also doesn't see bounds on the presidency set by what counts as government. He wants to autocratically rule the country in every aspect of the country, both to shut down the possibility of criticizing or opposing him, but also because he believes that he should run everything center. He should be handing out the Kennedy center honors, and he should be administering the police force of Washington, D.C. and he should be choosing the CEO of Intel, and he should be setting the recipe for Coke. And that's what they were after. And that's what we have.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you find this to be. Are you more alarmed by any part of it, or. It's part of the same idea. And for people who don't know, the White House plans to review the Smithsonian Museum expeditions, materials and operations before America's 250th anniversary next year. The administration sent a letter to Smithsonian this week explaining how the museum contestants is in line with Trump's Restoring truth and sanity to American History executive order. And recently, the National Museum of American History removed a placard that mentioned Trump's two impeachments, which has since been replaced. Is there one thing? This is like a cornucopia of stuff for you to focus on. What do you look at? What do you think is the thing that troubles you the most? Or is it in whole? Is it the takeover of the city or the attempt to take over the city, or is it the museum? I assume it's all of it. But is there something you find most, most disturbing?

[Rachel Maddow]

Well, it's all of a piece in the sense that I. I guess I have two answers to this question. One is that what Trump is doing is so textbook. Like, there's not anything that's very surprising about what he's doing. And we now know who he is and what his intentions are. It's not. There isn't gonna be a big reveal. Oh, he has authoritarian inclinations for our country, our intentions. Like, we now know who he is. He is Viktor Orban. He is Vladimir Putin. He is. Is Duterte. He is Berlusconi. You know, pick your poison. They all do the same thing, right? We're only lucky that Trump isn't taking his shirt off in photos. But so on that to me. Sorry, I just put that image right in your head, didn't I?

[Kara Swisher]

You did. I just totally saw his chest.

[Rachel Maddow]

It looks sad. Anyway, Swayze.

[Kara Swisher]

He's not Swayze. I take this shit from Swayze, but not from this guy.

[Rachel Maddow]

But because he's predictable, because he is playing two type, and it is a type, and it's a very knowable thing. I feel like there's only so much value in focusing on every new thing he does, because it's predictable what he's going to do. We know what this is. It makes me more interested in the question of the country's durability and how we're Responding and the strength of our institutions in standing, standing up to it. So that's one thing there. But the thing I'm most worried about is the military stuff.

[Kara Swisher]

The military meaning the takeover of the city or.

[Rachel Maddow]

Well, I mean, he's using the military to project force inward, domestically, everywhere. Immigration enforcement doesn't just look militarized, they're integrating with the military. They're building these immigrant prison camps with no due process. And a prison with no due process is a camp. They're building them on military bases. They've got hundreds of miles of territory in Arizona and New Mexico. In Texas, they're calling military zones where they're giving us active duty troops the authority to stop and search and arrest people on US soil. He threw himself a military parade for his own birthday. They're using military flights, incredibly expensive military flights, inexplicably for deportation flights. We've just found out that they've got a. They're considering building a new rapid reaction force where they've got 600 troops on one hour standby, 24 hours a day to go deploy into American cities. They put the National Guard in, the US Marines in la, and now they've got the National Guard and he's threatening active duty troops in D.C. i mean, he is reimagining the use of the U.S. military as his own Praetorian Guard, facing his critics and facing his citizens and normalizing. He's already, in this many months, normalized the presence of American troops in American cities with us at the end of their guns, right?

[Kara Swisher]

And when I think of any country I go to where there's troops on the streets, I'm always like, I'd like to get out of this country. Right? That's the. Like it makes you feel. I just interviewed Jason Stanley, who, you know, from Yale, who left this country. He was written about propaganda and fascism. I'm sure you know him well. And one of the things he said is he's sort of a. Kind of a cloddish playbook of a fascist. And I was like, well, does it matter if he's clownish and cartoonish, if he's effective in some way? Do you find all this effective?

[Rachel Maddow]

Well, he's doing it right. I mean, the thing that makes him effective is not any genius on his part or even any ambition or speed on his part. The thing that makes him effective is the cowardice and collapse of American institutions that should be saying no to him. That's the problem.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you see any heroes emerging? Emerging?

[Rachel Maddow]

Yes, the heroes that are emerging are emerging from not the leadership class, but the people. I mean, the fact that there's protests against Trump on every day of the week in every state in the country is important to me. And I think I've.

[Kara Swisher]

You feature that on your show quite.

[Rachel Maddow]

A bit, which is. Yeah, and I'm doing that not. Not because I think that's what everybody's talking about. And I want to get in on that conversation. I recognize that it's not getting a ton of attention, but I do think that shows you that the people in this country, you look at the opinion polls and you look at the ongoing protests, especially the small protests in red states and stuff against him, and you realize that nobody's into this.

[Kara Swisher]

Poor individuals. When someone's taking someone away, they start filming. I find those really powerful, like some, like, lady coming out of yoga, like, suddenly saying, what the fuck are you doing to this man? Exactly. Which is interesting.

[Rachel Maddow]

And that instinct in the American people is really healthy and is unafraid and is uncowed and is repulsed by this. And that's why Trump such terrible approval ratings. He's upside down. Even with men, even with, you know, with the way he's dropped with young people. It's a stunning drop. And that, to me, is very important. The crisis that we've got in our country is a crisis of elite cowardice. The law firms, the universities, the politicians, and the business leaders in particular, were.

[Kara Swisher]

They ever courageous, Rachel? I mean, I make the argument they weren't. You know, they're saying that universities were woke. I'm like, have you met a university president before this all? They hated those professors. They hated law firms, hated those, you know, pro bono people on their staff. And I don't know, I just never thought they were particularly courageous.

[Rachel Maddow]

But they're big, prestigious institutions with a lot of capital and a lot of connections and a lot of money and a lot of people who have a lot of room to maneuver without ever putting themselves in real danger. And those are the people that are failing us. And I actually think that if we're gonna, like, kind of protest and try to put steel in the spines of people and try to appeal to conscience, which is what nonviolent direct action does, some of that protest should be probably usefully strategically directed at the institutions that are failing, not just at Trump.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, one of the things Jason was saying is one of the things the civil rights things work is those people became empathetic given the visuals of civil rights. Right. The hoses and everything else. And you've gotta. He was wondering if the immigration rate will make everyone else who is comfortable angry enough or empathetic, really enough in a lot of ways, if you think about it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. But you need to see not just the rage. You need to see people standing up against them. So what you remembered about that woman in the yoga clothes in the parking lot there, yelling at those guys was not just what was happening to those guys that had inspired her to action. It was seeing her be courageous and outraged and not afraid. That stuck with.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Even the sandwich guy, all joking aside, when he did that, I'm like, oh, dear. And then I thought, well, good for him. Like, you know, and I was talking about it with my. My wife was saying, what should I do now? Like, should I go throw a sandwich? Should I, you know, get myself, you know, a tat? They're in front of Tate. That's the best part. Like, they're just like. Like, grab us their sandwich and throw it at them. But what do you. What is the action you take? I think is a lot of people are trying to figure out of those people who become empathetic to what. What's happening. Yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, I don't. I don't think the sandwiches deserve this. I mean, I think sandwiches deserve to be treated with respect. And, you know, like, I'm sure that guy that was, like, probably a meatball sub, like, with exactly the right kind of cheese and just the right. I mean, he's probably. He probably had that scooped out, you know, which took a lot of extra soft and wiggly.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm sorry. You shouldn't attack police. Let me just say. No. No does not encourage attacking police. But if you insist the sandwich is probably the best.

[Rachel Maddow]

No. No throwing anything at anybody.

[Kara Swisher]

No sandwiches. Rachel and I do not rec.

[Rachel Maddow]

Throwing sandwiches, though, if only for the sake of the sandwich.

[Kara Swisher]

Only for the sake of the sandwich. But then it's like, let me have a bite, or you throw.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, we've. We've got. One of the things that's different between now and what Americans were facing in the. In the 30s and 40s is that we have the example of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to show the. The. The apogee. The moral apogee of what it means to take incredibly difficult action against incredibly violent, entrenched opponents and to win on the strength of your moral case. And that's a moral cornerstone of our country. And we would be remiss to not learn from that in this moment. I mean, there's not gonna be a civil war in this country. There's not gonna be a violent confrontation. I mean, all Trump wants is for somebody to throw another sandwich or do something that they can consider to be a crime and use as a provocation. Nonviolent direct action gets the goods always. And it's our American inheritance and it's the thing that will ultimately push them back. Ultimately.

[Kara Swisher]

And also time. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's warning to Putin ahead of their Alaska getaway. Support for this show comes from Vanta. Here are a few things that are probably essential to your company's survival in the modern world World Internet access A tax id A great snack pantry well, here's something else that's essential. Trust. In today's fast changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth, it's essential. That's why Vanta is here. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get compliant fast and stay that way with industry leading AI, automation and continuous monitoring. So whether you're a startup tackling your first SoC2 or ISO 27 in 001 or you're an enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta's trust management platform makes it quicker, easier and more scalable. Vanta also helps you complete security questionnaires up to five times faster so you can win bigger deals sooner. The results According to a recent IDC study, Vanta customers slash over $500,000 a year in costs and are three times more productive. Establishing trust isn't optional. Vanta makes it Automatic. Automatic. Visit vanta.com pivot to sign up for a free demo today. That's V A N T a dot com Pivot Support for Pivot comes from Quince. With fall right around the corner, refreshing your wardrobe for the season ahead might be top of mind. Quince nails it with luxury essentials that feel effortless and look polished and are actually affordable. Their styles are so versatile, perfect for for layering and mixing. I find myself reaching for them again and again. They offer nice cashmere and cotton sweaters, washable silk tops, and classic denim pants. Their timeless styles would be great for when the weather changes. The best part? Everything from Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury without the markup. I've tried some of the stuff from Quint myself and I have stolen actually Scott Galloway cashmere and I'm really enjoying it and it'll be better when it gets cold. I also have bought lots of their athletic clothes and I'm actually wearing a Quince sports bra right now. The quality is excellent, feels great, it feels rich. And it doesn't cost you a lot of money, which is key. Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with quince. Go to quince.com pivot for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Quincy to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com pivot support for this show comes from Coda Powered by Grammarly it's great seeing our team come together to make this show happen. And with the amount of shows both me and Scott have, it's sometimes astounding that we get this podcast out on time. But the difficult part isn't just the recording. It's trying to keep track of all the information, deadlines and projects across dozens of platforms, products and tools. You might want to check out Coda, the All In One collaborative workspace that's helped 50,000 teams all over the world get on the same page. By offering the flexibility of docs with the structure of spreadsheets, Coda facilitates deeper teamwork and quicker creativity. And their turnkey AI solution, Coda Brain is a game changer. Powered by Grammarly, Coda is entering a new phase of innovation and expansion, aiming to redefine productivity for the AI era. Whether you're a startup looking to organize the chaos while staying nimble or an enterprise organization looking for better alignment, Coda matches your working style. Its seamless workspace connects to hundreds of your favorite tools, including Salesforce, Jira, Asana and Figma, helping your teams transform their rituals and do more faster. You can head over to Coda IO Pivot right now and get six months of the team plan for startups for free. That's C and get six months of the team plan for free. Coda IO Pivot Rachel, we're back. President Trump and Vladimir Putin are about to meet in Alaska, and Trump is warning that Russia will face, quote, very severe consequences if Putin doesn't agree to stop the war in Ukraine. The White House downplayed expectations for the summit earlier this week, describing it as a listening exercise, he said, talking about feeling people, feeling people out, which was relatively creepy in the episode. Feeling people up, out, feeling out, feeling.

[Rachel Maddow]

Out, feeling he might feel him up.

[Kara Swisher]

That's grotesque. Trump also, you've already gotten like lots of pictures in my head and I don't appreciate it. Trump also spoke with European leaders and Ukraine's President Zelensky ahead of the summit. European leaders asked Trump not to strike a unilateral peace deal, so gave him some key points of negotiation. Zelenskyy said he warned Trump that Putin was bluffing on pursuing peace. Obviously, he's called this meeting Putin's personal victory. What are you. I just had David Remitch on the last episode, and he said, you know, as long as he doesn't fuck up or give anything away right away, it'll be a victory. Like, if he, if he has a second meeting, if there's a. And he's been talking that way recently.

[Rachel Maddow]

I mean, this is all just so embarrassing. You know what I mean? I mean, Jimmy Fallon had that very good line where he was like, oh, listening and exercise. Two of Trump's favorite things.

[Kara Swisher]

He is funny.

[Rachel Maddow]

Do you remember the red line? Obama and the red line with Syria? So this was like 2012, I think it was. Obama gave a speech where he described Bashar al Assad potentially using chemical weapons as a red line, that that's how the United States would treat it. And then in 2013, Assad absolutely did that. And Obama responded by saying, all right, I'm going to Congress to get authorization for the use of military force against Syria. And Congress debated it a little bit, and then it kind of looked like it wasn't going to pass. And then it fell and then they didn't do it. They did not pass the authorization for the use of military force. That went down in political commentary. Common wisdom as, like, Obama was such a war wuss. He blew it on that red line thing. That was such an embarrassment. First of all, Obama didn't do anything wrong there. He went for. He went to Congress for an authorization for the use of military force, which is how it works in our system. And it was Congress that blew it. But that, that supposed failure, which wasn't a failure at all by Obama, 12, 13 years later, people still talk about that as like a nadir, a terrible thing about the Obama administration. Well, meanwhile, meanwhile, here's Trump. Wasn't it going to be like if by Friday the war wasn't over? It was going to be the end of days for Putin. And there was going to be sanctions. Ooh. And there was going to be tariffs. Oh, that's the worst thing in the world. It was going to be all of this terrible stuff. And instead, what does Putin get? Putin gets a trip to Alaska, go visit the former Russian empire, and a one on one meeting. Trump will fly as far as you're flying to come have a one on one man to man summit with you. The first time that you've Been in this country, except for the UN since 2007, and we get to talk about the war in Ukraine without Ukraine here. I mean, that's. I mean, talk about. Talk about a red line moment. I mean, I think it's what. I'm just worried that we don't end up in the post press conference with Trump in his lap or like. Or giving away Alaska or, like, delicately, like, touching his hair or like, cupping his face. Face. Spooning him.

[Kara Swisher]

What would you consider a success? Is there no success here? It's already given away.

[Rachel Maddow]

The success here would be if the US Government arrived at this summit, which has been put together on what, four days notice. Bilateral summit between the American and Russian president. If we arrived at this meeting and then somebody opened a door from a supply closet and Vladimir Zelensky walked out and sat down, and Trump said, you guys talk, I'll be right outside the door. That would be a victory, right? That.

[Kara Swisher]

But as if I'd give him the Nobel Peace Prize for that.

[Rachel Maddow]

Would you be surprised? I don't know that they allow us to vote. But, I mean, Trump is. The right word here is lick spittle. He is so afraid of Vladimir Putin. He is so afraid of him. He will do absolutely anything. I mean, We've got a 35% tariff on Canada and Russia has what percentage tariff? Right. Russia is mysteriously missing. Mysteriously missing from the whole tariffs on even uninhabited islands that only have penguins, but not Russia. And the way the media responds to Trump, as if his word is his bond. Right. Oh, Trump is explaining that he now has a new feeling about Putin and he's very upset with Putin. Oh, he's very disappointed him. He's really changed his tune. I think he soured on Putin. Really. Watch what he does, not what he says. He's literally in the man's pants.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, Right.

[Rachel Maddow]

And there's no distance here.

[Kara Swisher]

There's no distance between them. So you think just the fact that he's flying there is just. It's already given away.

[Rachel Maddow]

This is something that no American president has done in 18 years. In many countries in the world, if Vladimir Putin stepped foot on their soil, he'd be arrested and dragged off to the Hague. This is an abject humiliation for the United States of America and for the US Presidency that we will be reading about.

[Kara Swisher]

So what is the best thing that.

[Rachel Maddow]

Could come out of this, besides Zelensky coming out of the supply closet?

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Rachel Maddow]

What did the janitor say when he jumped out of the supply closet? Supplies. Sorry.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, my God. I'm sorry. What is that? That's not even a dad. That's a dad joke.

[Rachel Maddow]

That's a dad. It's a bad dad joke. That's a duck dad joke.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Anything good? Anything?

[Rachel Maddow]

No, no, I don't. No, I don't. I mean, what the Ukrainians say is nothing about Ukraine. Without Ukraine. And so if this is being negotiated, this is be like. If you're, like, getting a divorce or something, and the person from whom you're getting a divorce is going through the court proceedings without you, like, how do you. How do you think it's gonna. How do you think your side of the divorce is? You know, you think you're gonna get your alimony? You think you're gonna get your custody agreement? No, like, this is. This. There's nothing. There's nothing good about this. I will also say that Trump always, always after he talks to Putin, although now he admits he talks to Putin without telling anybody that he's doing. So every time we know he talks to Putin, he comes out after those discussions and starts parroting a new Russian.

[Kara Swisher]

Line, just like, we're gonna plow the boys under, right? Where it went from Goebbels to. To senators, US Senators, things he's saying, he repeats any.

[Rachel Maddow]

He's absolutely. He will just parrot whatever Putin tells him to say, which he has done. I mean, back to Helsinki, back to the very beginning. And he also adopts whatever position was last presented to him. And so in this case, he'll adopt whatever.

[Kara Swisher]

Whatever Putin says. Have you ever thought of calling him on the phone? Rachel, yourself, There is a cell phone.

[Rachel Maddow]

That he answers Trump.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

I did speak to him on the phone once during the 2016 campaign, which was funny. I was trying to get an interview with him. This is early in the primary process, and they had gone through this whole big, like, swearing me to secrecy thing that in order to get the interview, I needed to call him personally. And even the fact of the call had to be off the record. And they made us, like, swear there was no listening, there was no recording device, and, like, going through all this rigmarole. And so then I have. I call, like, I have the appointed time. I get on the phone with him, I ask him to do the interview. And at the end of my conversation with him, he goes, well, you can air this. This was nice. I was like, first of all, this is off the record, right?

[Kara Swisher]

I didn't tape it.

[Rachel Maddow]

I can tell you now, I agreed to it being off the record, but because he said that, I can now tell you. Kara Swisher, today that he said it was, it was now I was allowed to air it and I was like, my dude, like, do you, are you aware when you, you are in the media versus when you were having a.

[Kara Swisher]

No. He doesn't care if it goes well. He wants it out there. Right. If it goes, you know, if it's a very good call and stuff like that. So you're not expecting anything here. You just, it's going to be a roll. It's already a rollover.

[Rachel Maddow]

No, this is a, this is a bad thing. This, the meeting itself is a bad thing. Vladimir Putin being invited to the United States of America to meet one on one with the American president is all I need to know. And that's a bad thing. There's nothing substantively that's going to come out of this meeting except for Trump getting more of his influence instructions. Right. I think he's going to get Alaska.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm telling you, we're going to lose Alaska. We're going to lose Alaska. They're going to trade Sarah Palin and you know, you can see Russia from her porch. Anyway, let's bring that one back. I'm going to move on to something totally different. The US Supreme Court has officially been asked to overturn the 2015 decision that granted equal marriage rights same sex couples. If you remember Kim Davis, Heinous. Kim Davis is what I call her, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple. She's filed an appeal in July for the compensation she was ordered to pay that couple. Davis is taking her case to the court on the grounds that Obergefell of her B. Hodges, which established marriage equality was wrongly decided and infringes on her First Amendment rights. Davis has been unsuccessfully appealing the order for years to lower courts. She's the only one with standing to do this. From what I understand. I did predict an attack on marriage equality back in January. Let's listen to it. Clip and that's all they're doing is a naked grab for overturning the gay marriage Supreme Court decision. Like they overturned Roe v. Wade. And it's very vulnerable to two court justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said it should be reconsidered. So we'll see. It's theater. It's theater. But they're going to try to do this. They're trying to get a case up there that will make it happen. Are you concerned about this at all?

[Rachel Maddow]

Well, on this I'm sort of, I'm of two minds about the, about the decision. I feel like I agree with your prediction from January that they want to overturn. At least there are parts of the court that want to overturn it. I mean remember Obergefell was 5:4 decision and now the court is 6:3 in the direction that had been in the minority. And so I think they want to. But I also feel like the sort of legal common wisdom on this case as I understand it, I'm not a lawyer, but the legal common wisdom is that this is not the case. That while Kim Davis is appealing to the Supreme Court, her illegal actions in denying a marriage license because she says God told her to, in appealing that part of her case, she is also asking the court to overturn Obergefell. And this doesn't, just doesn't seem like legally the right VA vehicle to do that. The court also doesn't have to take up any of this. And even if they did take up the Kim Davis part of it, they don't have to address the Obergefell request in it at all. So I think yes, the anti gay movement in this country senses it's got the wind in its sails. They've got a newly reactionary Republican Party on these issues that's getting really demagogic on these issues and they think that they've got victories ahead. I just don't think this is the case by which they're gonna do it. That said, I mean they've been doing all sorts of stuff that isn't warranted or necessitated by the, by the material that's being put before them. That's the whole shadow docket idea. So this is a pretty radical court. And I don't, I don't really want to, I don't want to really want to stand here with, on plant two feet and say it's not going to happen. But it would be a, it would be a weird way for them to do it if they were going.

[Kara Swisher]

Weird way for them to do it. Well, I think they, I mean they go through trans people and then to gate like ultimately marriage really chapped their ass. They really did a lot of these people and I think that that was.

[Rachel Maddow]

But still like more than 2/3 of the country agree is in favor of same sex marriage, which is a reversal from what it was when they decided it.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. But, but still look at abortion, gun control, all that stuff has the, you know, the 8020 rule on so much stuff. There's so much stuff that is an 8020 people are for it and it doesn't matter.

[Rachel Maddow]

That's Part of the reason they don't like democracy is because they actually don't have the people with them on this stuff on which they're making some of the worst.

[Kara Swisher]

Correct.

[Rachel Maddow]

The largest advances at least.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I'm not getting gay married again. That's all I have to say. Anyway, good luck taking away my marriage. Honestly, it's so ridiculous. Such a waste of time. All right, Rachel, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about what the women of the right are up to.

[Rachel Maddow]

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows home, so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app download today. Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4 liter. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, come on.

[Rachel Maddow]

They called a truce for their holiday.

[Kara Swisher]

And used Expedia trip planner to collaborate.

[Rachel Maddow]

On all the details of their trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool. Whatever. You were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel. My name's Sean Ramisworm for Today explained. I'm outside the Air and Space museum in Washington, D.C. with one question. Do you think we should go to Mars?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't think you should live in Mars, no.

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't know why. Just Mars. I think as earthlings, we are a nosy group of people and I really don't think that we have any business going to Mars.

[Kara Swisher]

Our knowledge about the solar system and the universe will grow substantially. I think maybe we should just leave Mars alone, just sit with Earth.

[Rachel Maddow]

Like so many innovations are going to come out of it because so many different companies are going to be fighting to get, you know, that first ticket to Mars. So I feel, I feel like we should.

[Kara Swisher]

But at the same time, we should.

[Rachel Maddow]

Solve some problems here. First.

[Kara Swisher]

I think we need to expand what we, what we know, what we see.

[Rachel Maddow]

Honestly, for our own benefit, we should.

[Kara Swisher]

Go way beyond today.

[Rachel Maddow]

Explained from Vox is taking a summer sojourn on Mars. Join us.

[Kara Swisher]

Rachel. We're back with a quick update of the women on the right. Let's start with Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, former Employee of Elon Musk, she launched her own podcast, the Katie Miller Podcast, and kicking it off with a J.D. vance interview. That charmer. Now let's listen to some of the hard hitting journalism happening over there. Oh, God. If you could only eat one condiment for the rest of your life, what would it be?

[Rachel Maddow]

One condiment?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

Does barbecue sauce count?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Okay.

[Rachel Maddow]

Barbecue sauce.

[Kara Swisher]

Not mayonnaise?

[Rachel Maddow]

No, no. Mayonnaise is like, in low doses is.

[Kara Swisher]

Good, but it's kind of like I.

[Rachel Maddow]

Had a buddy who used to eat French fries with mayonnaise. I thought that was disgusting.

[Kara Swisher]

That's the only thing my husband eats with French fries.

[Rachel Maddow]

Or like, period, period.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Rachel Maddow]

Wow.

[Kara Swisher]

I didn't realize he's only a mayonnaise guy.

[Rachel Maddow]

Okay. I learned something about Steve and I didn't know. Yeah, it's whatever.

[Kara Swisher]

God.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh, Cara, why did you put that in my head?

[Kara Swisher]

Because you put naked Donald Trump in my head.

[Rachel Maddow]

Oh, my God. I don't want to think about mayonnaise at all. And I don't want to think about Stephen Miller at all now. Stephen Miller and mayonnaise are the same when they're on. Oh, my God.

[Kara Swisher]

What's your favorite condiment joke?

[Rachel Maddow]

Whatever the opposite of this moment is, is my favorite thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, my God. It's. Is she gonna steal our thunder? Good God.

[Rachel Maddow]

Ah. So why does Katie Miller have a podcast that is.

[Kara Swisher]

There you go. That's the question. I think it's historical.

[Rachel Maddow]

What was Katie Miller doing for Elon Musk?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't. I don't know. I'm not.

[Rachel Maddow]

Wasn't she working?

[Kara Swisher]

She was. She was working from pr. Presumably there were other comments about their relationship, but I don't. I allegedly.

[Rachel Maddow]

Was she. Was she working for Tesla or.

[Kara Swisher]

She was working for Doge. Him personally? No, she worked for Doge. Remember, she was the Doge lad. And then when he was knocked out, she went with him. And that was the big, like, what's happened here? You know, and. Because obviously Miller is the most significant player in that administration at this point. And then she's left. She stopped doing stuff for him. She had to get out. Cause she's. She knows where her mayonnaise is buttered.

[Rachel Maddow]

I'm gonna sue. I'm gonna sue. I've been irreparably damaged with mayonnaise. I want a temporary restraining order from any more mayonnaise talk out of you.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, she's has her. She. Everyone has a podcast. There's all these ladies of the right that are now pushing. There's this whole movement of ladies of the Right. You know, she's like, we need to be heard. I'm like, you need not to be heard. You've been heard enough. I love the.

[Rachel Maddow]

Just the idea of Ladies of the Right is also great because the whole Lord of the Rings thing was so weird, but I think that if we could change the acronym so it was Ladies of the Right rather than Lord of the Rings. Name all our companies after that.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, they just. They're getting into podcasting, and some are more successful. Like I said, Megyn Kelly is very popular, but there's a whole movement of these people. They feel like, oh, I got a microphone. I can say whatever I want. Like, I just. It is a movement.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's not specific to them, though. I feel like everybody. Like, every. Every. Every homeowner's association and PTA has a podcast now, too. Yeah, it's just. It's the way that people are. It's the. It's the blog.

[Kara Swisher]

It's the.

[Rachel Maddow]

Remember when everybody had a blog?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it's the.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's the blog of today that everybody has a blog.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, she'll get. She'll. She's sort of a house organ for these people, so they can come on and say adorable things and. And it'll get, so to speak, eaten up like mayonnaise.

[Rachel Maddow]

Did you listen to more of the podcast than the Mayonnaise clip?

[Kara Swisher]

I did. No. It was something literally that was the highlight of it. The mayonnaise was the highlight. It was sort of like, so what do you do for fun? Like, it was. It was. It was painful.

[Rachel Maddow]

It was painful. Do you remember in the first term, first Trump term, when he appointed Jared to a job at the White House? And then it was like, jared's in charge of Middle east peace. Jared's in charge of, like, Jared's in charge of everything. Jared's in charge of COVID in charge. And as he was accruing all of these jobs and more jobs and more jobs and more jobs, Jared Kushner was starting to really loom, as maybe this is the person who's actually kind of running the federal government. Jared Kushner.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh.

[Rachel Maddow]

And, like, lots of things are being ascribed to him and dark things being ascribed to him, and he's really seen as the power behind the throne, especially post Bannon and everything. And then it occurred to sort of the collective mindset at some point that, like, nobody had ever actually heard from Jared. And then they rolled him out and they had him do a White House press briefing or White House press conference statement at Some point. And everybody's thinking like, Jared Kushner is the man. Jared Kushner's the power. He's the Sith Lord here. And he walks up to the microphone and he says, hello, everybody. He was like, open his mouth. And it was like, oh, no, all illusions have gone. There's something about his presentation, in particular his voice that was like, oh, yeah, I don't have to worry about this guy. I felt the same way about Ron DeSantis and his much heralded presidential campaign. It was real. On paper, it looks fantastic. And then he walks up to the microphone.

[Kara Swisher]

Hey, yeah, Looks and sound. Well, do you remember what's his name? Howard Dean had the same problem. Right. Like, there is an element of looks and presentation that matters to be. Yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

Although with Howard Dean, I think that was a little bit of a. It was the scream, right?

[Kara Swisher]

It was the scream.

[Rachel Maddow]

And it was just like a weird pickup. It was a weird pickup thing. But he didn't otherwise speak like a weirdo. No, I think that he got mumdani'd. He got Democrats.

[Kara Swisher]

He's doing pretty well, getting well, Howard.

[Rachel Maddow]

Dean was for a while, too, but Democrats got all scared because he actually had class analysis.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, that's true. That's a fair point. So you're not worried about Katie Miller taking a show from you, are you? Oh, no.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

You still haven't answered the condiment issue.

[Rachel Maddow]

The weird thing about me in condiments is that I put mustard on my eggs.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, that's okay.

[Rachel Maddow]

I like things with vinegar in them. And mustard has vinegar in it. And so when I get like a bacon, egg and cheese, I put mustard and hot sauce on it. That's.

[Kara Swisher]

And by the way, many people in Belgium eat mayonnaise with. Many people in Europe eat mayonnaise with fries.

[Rachel Maddow]

There aren't that many people in Belgium, though.

[Kara Swisher]

Well.

[Rachel Maddow]

And yet, let's be straight about this.

[Kara Swisher]

They enjoy their mayonnaise, and we're not even going to get into aioli. All right, some more ladies to the right. Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene are beefing. In the last week, Laura Loomer claimed the Trump White House can't stand Marjorie Taylor Greene in a deposition. A lawsuit against Bill Maher. By the way, please go read that whole deposition. It's one wacky thing after the next. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested Laura Loomer was bankrolled by Israeli intelligence. And Loomer is called. Called mtg. A rabid dog and a lying, fake Christian whore. I don't think we could do any better for that what is happening? I think a bigger question is on the right. What happens post Trump? Because there will be eventually a post Trump unless they weakened and Bernie's this guy. What happens? Because there seems to be so many Fishers in this gang of, like, one.

[Rachel Maddow]

Of the things, you know, I've done a lot of work in the past few years on, like, the far right and the far right in American modern history and what they've. What they've done and who they are and how they network with mainstream and elected right wingers and stuff.

[Kara Swisher]

And they're good at it. Let's just be clear.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. And there's. It's always been much more seamless between the far right and the center right than it is between the far left and the mainstream left. But one of the things that has limited the ascendance and the power and the sustainability of the very far right in the past is that they're all crooks and mean girls and they steal from each other and get in fistfights and set each other's houses on fire and sleep with each other's wives and husbands, and there's so much infighting that they can't keep it together for more than a single generation, ever. And that's true in everything from the American Nazi Party, where we have George Lincoln Rockwell assassinated by one of his own people, to the Liberty Lobby, which was a Holocaust denial neo Nazi organization that was very integrated with the elected right in the, in the Reagan era, where they descended into incredible, like, fistfights and smashing each other over the head with iron bars. Like, there's all this stuff. And it always goes that way. And right now, we do have. With an authoritarian in the White House, we do have greater and more scary, more powerful integration between the very far right and the right than we've ever had before. But it doesn't expunge that dynamic, which I think always exists on the far right, which is. You're Israeli intelligence. No, you're Israeli intelligence and you're a whore.

[Kara Swisher]

And you're a. I mean, that's fake Christian whore. That's the name of my band, but go ahead. Aw. Actually, the name of my band is Pregnant Women Smoking, but go ahead.

[Rachel Maddow]

I would buy merch from either.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. So you feel like a crack up is inevitable in that regard without the organizing glue of Donald Trump, I just.

[Rachel Maddow]

Feel like the constant cracking up. Like, I feel like constant warring and cracking up. And, you know, they're polygraphing each other in the Defense Secretary's office. Right.

[Kara Swisher]

And they're all the same people. They're all on the same side. Yes.

[Rachel Maddow]

And, you know, and Bannon is out there denouncing, you know, Bannon and Musk or they're gonna kill each other. And these guys are fract factious by nature because they're conspiratorial and purist and they're not awesome when it comes to rational argument and compromise. And so they're always denouncing and beating one another to death. And I don't think that will change. And I think that's to all of our benefit.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Rachel Maddow]

And I hope they never change.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Because they will continue to do so. Yeah, you're gonna see more of that. No matter how I agree with you, I'm always like, minute Trump leaves the picture, it degenerates really rather quickly.

[Rachel Maddow]

The conspiratorial right. Is inherently fractious. And that's part, part of why they're a bad bet for governance because they're constantly schisming against other.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, they're bond throwers by nature. Right. And they're shitsters and breakers of things. They're sort of like toddlers, almost like the tech bros. But you know what I call tech bros now? Technically broken. I keep repeating that stuff. That catches on. You can use it anytime. Rachel, please. You'll popularize it if you will. Technically broken. All right, Rachel, one more quick break and we will be back for our last segment on predictions. Megan Rapino here this week on A Touch More, we are welcoming a very special guest to the show. She speaks multiple languages, her middle name is literally tough, and I used to dread playing against her on the field. That's right, it's five time Champions League winner Lucy Brady bronze and now two time Euro winner. Plus, sue and I discuss the bonkers.

[Rachel Maddow]

Scoring in the W and share our.

[Kara Swisher]

New workout of the week. Check out our latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcast. And on YouTube.

[Rachel Maddow]

This week on Net.

[Kara Swisher]

Worth and Chill, I'm joined by Allison.

[Rachel Maddow]

Stoner, the multi talented performer and author.

[Kara Swisher]

Of the upcoming book Semi well Adjusted. Despite literally, literally everything from backing up.

[Rachel Maddow]

Missy Elliott as a kid to starring in Disney's Camp Rock and transitioning into.

[Kara Swisher]

Mental health advocacy and creative direction, Alison.

[Rachel Maddow]

Reveals how they've navigated dealing with the finances of child stardom while staying true to their authentic self. I uncovered that many people had been taking money in various ways since I was a child without me really knowing or understanding.

[Kara Swisher]

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com your rich BFF.

[Rachel Maddow]

All right, so here's the deal.

[Kara Swisher]

Take a Steelers captain who's been bleeding.

[Rachel Maddow]

Black and gold and playing for the.

[Kara Swisher]

Steelers for over a decade. That's me, Cam Hayward. Add in football minds who live and.

[Rachel Maddow]

Breathe this game and you get Not Just Football with Cam Hayward a weekly podcast where we break down the sport.

[Kara Swisher]

We all live for. We talk about what's really happening in the league, sit down with players you know and respect, and shine a light.

[Rachel Maddow]

On the moment that don't make the highlight reels.

[Kara Swisher]

Whether it's the season predictions, sharing what it's really like in the locker room, or diving into the real stories behind the headline, we've got it all.

[Rachel Maddow]

This podcast is about having fun and.

[Kara Swisher]

Giving fans an inside look at what makes football incredible. Catch not just Football with Cam Heyward.

[Rachel Maddow]

On YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Like, subscribe, follow all that good stuff. Let's get after it.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, Rachel, let's hear about Prediction. I can make one too, but I would like you to do you want you go first. Well, I'm living for two things. I think Gavin Newsom's done very well with his tweeting of Trump Fake. You know, he's mimicking Trump, which is really great, but I'm really enjoying the AI boys fighting. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are going at it again. Musk alleged that Apple engaged in antitrust violations, making it impossible for AI companies other than OpenAI to reach the top of the App Store. Musk says xai will take immediate legal Altman responded to a claim saying, this is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like. And Musk responded saying, you had 3 million responses to this and I have many more followers and I didn't have nearly as many. And Sam Altman delivered the fantastic and only gay people can do this slap which was skill issues. I predict this war is gonna get worse because I think that Elon will do anything. There is a weird anger that he has towards Sam Altman who he used to be not aligned with. They did a company did open eye together and he will not rest until he is somehow sullied. You can have your opinions about Sam Altman all you want or any of these tech people, but this is gonna get, I think worse as Grok continues to crater a found and so Elon's gonna sort of focus his attention away from Trump. Although I do think he did start the Epstein thing and continue to like, go at anything that has to do with OpenAI and try to kill it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Does Musk have stick to itiveness problems though? Does he?

[Kara Swisher]

Absolutely, Absolutely. He is like a, like, you know, like, what's a bird that. A hummingbird. He just flips, he flits, he flots. There's a song. What is that? Oh, it's in from Sound of Music. It's a Sound of Music song. It goes back to Julie Andrews, the villainous.

[Rachel Maddow]

Just get it. We're back to Juliet.

[Kara Swisher]

No, the villainess in that is my favorite character of all time. The Baroness. The Baroness. Remember her?

[Rachel Maddow]

The Baroness.

[Kara Swisher]

The Baroness.

[Rachel Maddow]

She was a. Susan watches the Sound of Music like three times a year.

[Kara Swisher]

As she should.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, I just. I go get on the exercise bike.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you. It's such a brilliant thing.

[Rachel Maddow]

It is. But three times a year, really?

[Kara Swisher]

You know, there's the idea that it's anti gay because all the Germans are gay. Gay coding. And all the Austrians are like hikers or something like that. I just. I just heard that. I'm like, what are you talking about? Ralph is just an. He's not gay. Goodness sake.

[Rachel Maddow]

Also, there can be gay. It happens.

[Kara Swisher]

I agree. Oh, hello. Nazis had a whole division of them. They did get killed, as you know. As you well know, as a. As a studier of the Nazis. They did kill Ernst Rome and his band of gays before they got into power.

[Rachel Maddow]

Anyway, they didn't call them the band of gays.

[Kara Swisher]

The band of gays. Mean gays.

[Rachel Maddow]

It sounded better in the German.

[Kara Swisher]

I know. There's way more mean gays than you realize. Okay, let's hear a prediction from you.

[Rachel Maddow]

Okay. I have a couple of things that are just like a heads up in terms of things that I think are gonna get more important.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Rachel Maddow]

One is the U.S. attorneys scandal. So this started in Albany, Northern District of New York, and then New Jersey with Alina Haba, and then in California and then in Las Veg. Trump is. It would appear to be illegally installing US Attorneys. And US Attorneys doesn't sound like that big a deal. But these are the people who prosecute federal crimes in these states and districts. And there's a real question as to whether or not it's possible to have federal law enforcement legally in any of these states where he's effectively illegally installed these U.S. attorneys. So this is a slow burn story, but it's gonna become a bigger one because he's trying to something that isn't working and it's gonna result in a confrontation with the courts. And with federal districts, which it has in New Jersey with Elaine, it has already. And that's gonna break one way or the other. And Trump is. It's just worth watching there. Cuz that could be an important constitutional moment. I would say it's also really worth watching Trump's threat that he wants to redo the census. And again, census sounds boring, but there is a universe in which Trump is worried that he's going to lose the House. House in the midterms in 2026. And so he says, okay, we need a new census, because actually the last census, I'm nullifying it because it had immigrants in it and therefore it doesn't count. Therefore all the congressional districts nationwide that were set by that last census, those are no longer in effect. Therefore, we cannot have the 2026 midterm elections the way we're supposed to, because those congressional districts are illegal and we'll have to delay it. I mean, it's a sort of doomsday scenario in terms of the technical part of our democracy and continuing to have elections. But that census part of it is a key piece, so those are worth paying attention.

[Kara Swisher]

Of course it's going for the census.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's going for the census, but it's a way to go for elections.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right. Over. Under. On how? 50, 50, 40, 30? What is that?

[Rachel Maddow]

I don't know. I mean, I think that they floated the let's have a new census thing in part to see what the reaction to it is, and people have treated it like, that's weird or that's like a technical, technically infeasible thing. Hey, guess what? He doesn't actually want a new census.

[Kara Swisher]

It's not that he's to slow it down. That's a very good point. It's not to get a new census.

[Rachel Maddow]

Don't assume any good faith on the part of these arguments. The takeover of DC Is not about crime. The attempt to nullify the census is not about the quality of the census. All of these things are all about what everything he does is for, which is to accrue more power and to make it more dangerous and difficult to oppose him or criticize him and slow.

[Kara Swisher]

Down, possibly inevitable, which is his defeat.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. And so that's one of the one potentially positive thing to look for, is that I do think the MRNA funding decision has to be reversed. I think that that was. I think they blew it. I think RFK Jr blew it in terms of the announcing the cutoff of MRNA vaccine, funding MRNA technology. It would be like us opting out of penicillin. Right. I mean.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right. Did you see that add that thing? The Washington Post, which is the new house organ for press releases from the Trump administration, The opinion section ran a piece by. Why we tabled mRNA and we tabled.

[Rachel Maddow]

MRNA funding because the American people, for some reason have the suspicions, and they don't trust MRNA says. Right. We just appoint Trump. Just put a guy in the health department who says that WI Fi gives you leaky brain, says that HIV doesn't cause aids and that Covid was genetically engineered to spare the Jew. Yeah. I wonder why people have weird ideas about vaccine technologies. There you go. I actually think the MRNA decision is bad enough. And that pushback in the Washington Post is part of the reason. I think, actually, that they are going to have to reverse.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, no, the Post didn't push back. They published a positive piece by the guy who did it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, the op ed. But that op ed was so weak. If that's the argument for why you're doing it, they feel the need to make the argument. The argument is wrong.

[Kara Swisher]

That's a fair point.

[Rachel Maddow]

The Post is such important technology.

[Kara Swisher]

They also had an auditorial. It's such a heinous. David and I talked about this week. But saying that, hey, maybe the DC needs more crime fighting. Like, I was literally. I nearly walked over there and slapped them. I just was like, I need to now go down there and slap them at this point.

[Rachel Maddow]

Turns out having a billionaire running stuff doesn't make it good.

[Kara Swisher]

Technically broken. Rachel, I think, actually your prediction was gonna be that you were going to the UFC fight at the White House. Oh, well, I was wrong.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah. I don't know. Not unless they're gonna use me as a prop. Like a. You know, like a chair. They're breaking a chair over somebody's head.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. You'd be a great UFC fighter. You'd be a great.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, yeah. Remember, I'm taller than people expect. I'm noodley Kara.

[Kara Swisher]

That's the shit out of people, I think. Anyway, I really appreciate you doing this. I'm enormous. Besides someone. I've gotten to know you a little bit. I think you're a wonderful person, but you're doing God's work, I think. And I think people don't realize how funny you are and everything else and how substantive you. Please read her books. All of them. They have changed my life in a lot of ways. I wrote stuff I didn't know, and I. I'm a very big student of history. Both ultras and. Is there another season of Ultra coming.

[Rachel Maddow]

There is a new podcast coming. It is not a season of Ultra, but for fans of Ultra, you will find a lot that you like.

[Kara Swisher]

That's great. That's really good stuff. I didn't know and I knew a lot of stuff and prequel is a wonderful book. Everybody read it. That's the part of I love your show, but that stuff I just adore. I think it's amazing.

[Rachel Maddow]

Kara Swisher, I'm very thankful for you. Thank you very much.

[Kara Swisher]

Thank you. I'm gonna read us out. We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 pivot. That's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] pod we'll be back next week for another break of all things tech and business. And Rachel, a jar of mayonnaise is on the way.

[Rachel Maddow]

Thanks, Kara. So gross.