Rachel Maddow: --🎧🎧🎧"On the cover of the Rolling Stone"🎧🎧🎧

I enjoyed the interview.








Rachel Maddow: The Rolling Stone Interview

How America's wonkiest anchor cut through the chaos of the Trump administration and became the most trusted name in news



....................One afternoon, I sit in on a production meeting with Maddow and about 20 staffers. The news of the day pertains to the president's latest pre-dawn tweet storm, in which Trump mused about canceling White House press briefings, and later hinted that he "might" have secretly recorded his meetings with Comey. Maddow, wearing a brown hoodie, stands in front of a large whiteboard, marker in hand, studying a long list of potential story ideas. She considers the taping issue, which White House spokesman Sean Spicer refuses to comment on: "If Trump says there are tapes and there actually is a taping system, then it's relevant that Spicer has no comment." She looks at her staff. "Who thinks he has a taping system?" Everyone raises a hand.





Maddow’s high school senior picture. Seth Poppel

Why Trump would admit to this is puzzling. Quite possibly, he's just being Trump; on the other hand, as Maddow points out, with the potential obstruction-of-justice issues that secretly taping your FBI director might raise, his comments are worrisome. "It does seem like the president is melting down, like there's something?.?.?.?degenerating in his statements," she says. "But it's not our business."

"When is it our business?" asks Maddow's executive producer, Cory Gnazzo.

"When they invoke the 25th Amendment," says Conaway.

A short debate ensues over when, if ever, the show could broach the president's mental fitness. Maddow quickly dis-misses it. "Trump has mastered the political media by causing you to lose focus and then re-center on whatever it is he's just said," she tells me later. "But I'm not interested in what the president has to say."

What's your rule about how to cover this administration?


We have a mantra when it comes to this administration: "Don't pay attention to what they say, focus on what they do." And that is very helpful, because it's easier to cover a fast-moving story when you're not distracted by whatever the White House denials are. It's fascinating that H.R. McMaster and Dina Powell and Rex Tillerson, these very impressive people, all came out and denied that the president gave the Russians secret intelligence in the Oval Office. But, then, the next morning the president was like, "Yeah, I did tell the Russians!" So that's a sign to not get too hung up on what the White House is saying at any moment, because even their most credible people are being put forward to lie, bluntly, regularly?.?.?.?and it's OK!

Do you marvel at the degree to which the administration just blatantly lies?


I think it's more helpful to take that information, the fact that the White House is putting out nonfactual information on a regular basis, and internalize it. What it means is there is a whole area of information coming from "White House sources" that has no meaningful impact on what I understand to be true about the world. For me, that's helpful in an organizational way.....................