Rachel Maddow Puts The Media To Shame With Brilliant Interviews Of Clinton And Sanders

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:52 pm

While other members of the media try to make news, Rachel Maddow showed how it is supposed to be done with two intelligent back to back interviews of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

During her interview with former Sec. of State Clinton, Maddow went the extra mile by going back to Clinton get her discuss Donald Trump’s abortion punishment comments after she had already taped the interview.

Maddow got Clinton to offer a different perspective that didn’t match up with the Beltway conventional wisdom on the Republican Party and Trump:

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What I think is going on is that, you know, they know, because of his personality, because of his divisiveness, which is much more out there than what you see among other Republicans, not that it’s that different, but the way he expresses it. You know, going after Mexicans as rapists, and criminals. Insulting women. Barring Muslims.

You know, that reflects a certain strain of belief within the Republican party. It’s not totally outside the pale of what many of their leaders have been saying, campaigning on, winning elections on. What they’ve done is to create the environment where someone emerges who is truly, in their view, a personality they don’t know what to do with. And yet on issues it– they should look in the mirror.

Rachel Maddow didn’t talk about emails or the other shiny Republican created objects that the media gets infatuated with. Instead, she asked intelligent questions, and she got smart answers.

During her interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders, Maddow gave Sanders the room to discuss the Republican Party in blunt terms, “And I think if we had a media in this country that was really prepared to look at what the Republicans actually stood for rather than quoting every absurd remark of Donald Trump, talking about Republican Party, talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the top two tenths of 1 percent, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, a party which with few exceptions, doesn’t even acknowledge the reality of climate change, let alone do anything about it, a party which is not prepared to stand with women in the fight for pay equity, a party that is not prepared to do anything about a broken criminal justice system or a corrupt campaign finance system, I think, to be honest with you — and I just don’t, you know, say this rhetorically, this is a fringe party. It is a fringe party. Maybe they get 5, 10 percent of the vote.”

Rachel Maddow delivered two of the best candidate interviews that voters will see anywhere in 2016. Her interviews were informative to the electorate and demonstrated how it is possible to provide both entertainment and information. By not trying to make the news, Rachel Maddow added to the political discourse and provided two hours of shining programming in a sea of 24-hour cable news muck.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association