RM implied that trump's gov't shutdown in December and January indirectly caused the Ethiopian crash, and their lack of action now would put them at risk for being blamed if another flight crashed.

I'll happily credit Maddow, but someone in the White House somewhere along the line finally figured out that if 737s were grounded around the world except for the United States, the next 737 crash (God forbid) was going to be laid squarely at the administration's doorstep. No amount of braying about "fake news" or "unfair" would cover the stark, unvarnished fact that the administration hadn't taken this seriously. Even the famously non-partisan objective purveyors of the news might have to draw a conclusion the administration didn't like.

And so, cornered like a rat with no possible avenue of escape and with the world's attention unwaveringly fixed upon him, Donald Trump did the right thing.

or received a text to turn it on

She has presented stories before in a way that seemed intended to create pressure on officials to act, & I think it works sometimes. I love that about her. She actually believes in what she is doing and recognizes her potential to influence outcomes.

Her presentation was excellent

aviation professionals. The decision to ground the airplane was the result of the rest of the world's having done so, plus additional technical data the FAA had obtained. The FAA doesn't give a rat's ass about a cable news show for the general public.

Also, Elaine Chao's name isn't spelled "Chow."

This is about the new unaerodynamic 737 MAX Kludge that should never have been certified for civilisn use.

...what she is talking about -- but the Trump admin is full of people who know nothing about the jobs they were appointed to do and in fact are inimical to them.

What Rachel Maddow does is give those who watch her show the ammunition to approach the people who can do something about what is going on. Citizens can call Congress. Congressmen and Senators can demand answers. WE are the audience.

ETA. Updated to fix grammatical error!

Someone might have referred Chao or an aid of either of them to the video. And that someone said something like, "You got to watch this, it is informative as well as important. Perhaps, just perhaps, that Chao watched and became convinced. Just this one time to watch. Or perhaps an aid to one of them watched and convinced them.

...Or more likely, someone in the aviation community convinced one of them that not doing something would be awful if there were another crash. The administration would have been warned, and told and nothing was done, (if they did nothing) and then the fallout from another crash would have been awful for the administration. Or one of Trump's friends in the Republican Party who donated a lot of money called in and warned them. At least it was done.