Rachel Maddow warns of 'red flag' that is 'flying very high right now in MAGA politics'

MSNBC is not only excelling at attracting live television audiences — the progressive news network is now drawing healthy crowds to live events.

Over the weekend, some 4,000 people turned out to a sold-out Brooklyn Academy of Music theater to listen and interact with their favorite personalities from the channel. The event, "MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024," featured the network's top hosts, including Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O'Donnell, Stephanie Ruhle, Jen Psaki, Alex Wagner, Katy Tur, and others.

The occasion also featured the world premiere of Maddow's "From Russia With Lev," which will make its television debut on MSNBC on September 20th and 9pm ET.

We caught up with Maddow on Sunday morning for a wide-ranging conversation about the “MSNBC Live” event, her new documentary, the news media's coverage of Donald Trump, the forthcoming ABC News debate, Tucker Carlson's embracement of an Adolf Hitler apologist, and so much more.

Below is the Q&A, which has been edited for clarity and length.

OLIVER: What did you make of the fact that 4,000-some people opted to pay to spend their Saturday with you and other MSNBC hosts?

RACHEL: It was incredible. To experience the wave of human energy in that auditorium, and to just see all of those faces of all people who wanted to be there, to have an in real life experience coming together around this TV network that they like and they trust. It was like really nothing else I've ever experienced in my career.

I also feel like in American culture right now, no matter you know who you support in politics, it's a good thing to do constructive, positive, celebratory stuff in real life, rather than having everything mediated through your phone or even through your television. It’s just a constructive good thing for us as people to meet each other, and look each other in the eye, and to make new friends. And I think a lot of that happened yesterday in Brooklyn.

OLIVER: As a top-rated cable news host, you speak to millions of people on a regular basis. But a live audience is obviously different.

RACHEL: It's funny because when I do my TV show, it's really just me in the room. Usually there's a floor manager named Jackie. And if I get any like reaction out of Jackie, if I can get her to like, gasp or chuckle, I kind of hang my hat on that. And mentally, when I'm talking to the camera lens, I'm thinking about talking to my partner, Susan. It's Jackie in the room with me and Susan in my head. And I don't think about there being tons and tons of other people. So having all those faces visible and people reacting audibly and visibly what you're doing, it's just totally different.

OLIVER: At the event, you premiered your new documentary, "From Russia With Lev." The film ends with a striking scene of Lev Parnas apologizing in person to Hunter Biden. That scene was not initially planned. Can you walk us through how you all were able to capture it on film?

RACHEL: Over the course of these interviews we produced for the documentary, Lev evolved in his understanding of what he had been through to a more profoundly abject sense of remorse toward Hunter Biden. And he said he would like to apologize to him. And that set his own wheels in motion for trying to make it happen. We all thought like, 'Oh yeah, sure, right.' None of us actually thought he really meant it or would pursue it.

And then before we knew it, he basically lined it up. He contacted Hunter Biden and told him the kind of project that he was a part of, and how he wanted to apologize. And would Hunter consent to allow him to do that? And if so, would he allow him to do it on camera? We were shocked. Lev wasn't shocked, but he's unshockable. But we were all shocked. And then shocked yet again when it actually happened.

OLIVER: Parnas gets very emotional in the scene and starts to cry. Hunter Biden appears to forgive him. Do you think the American public should also forgive him?

RACHEL: Certainly he has earned all the skepticism with which he has created, and the film is about that. And we weren't trying to — you're not trying to tell a story of a hero. You're trying to tell a story of a real person with real flaws and a really interesting backstory who gets involved in something really bad.

But I do believe that Lev is genuinely remorseful. I think he genuinely is trying to undo some of the harm that he has done. And through this process, I understood more about his deep regret toward Ukraine, his deep understanding of how Russia was behind this whole scam as a foreign influence operation to try to hurt this country.

And it's everybody's individual decision whether or not you choose to forgive him. But I believe, personally as Rachel, that his remorse is real and is worth something.

OLIVER: I'm curious: For years, right-wing media personalities have mocked you for focusing on Russian election meddling. What do you make of the fact that we learned this week that a number of right-wing influencers were revealed to have themselves been caught up in a Russian influence operation?

RACHEL: In a single news cycle this week, we saw a former Trump campaign advisor indicted federally for his financial ties to sanctioned state-run Russian media. And we saw the Justice Department shut down dozens of websites designed to look like news outlets that were secretly run by Russia that were promoting Donald Trump and trying to turn Americans against each other. And we saw very high-profile pro-Trump right-wing influencers revealed to be on the payroll — the very generous payroll — of the Russian government.

And it may be a defense to say, "Hoax, hoax, hoax. You shouldn't cover this. It's not real." But it's not a very good defense.

Our most determined enemy believes that their best tactic for weakening the United States is to spend hand over fist to put Trump back in the White House. Putin is not a guy who is messing with our elections because he wants what's best for us. He's trying to destroy the United States, or hurt us as much as he can, and he sees the best way to do that is by helping the Trump movement. And I just think that deserves some self reflection on the right.

OLIVER: Do you think that self-reflection will ever come?

RACHEL: I believe that humans can change, and that redemption is possible, and that nothing is inevitable. And so I am always hopeful.

OLIVER: The ABC News presidential debate is on Tuesday. What advice would you give David Muir and Linsey Davis? And if this were the Rachel Maddow debate, would you interrupt the candidates for live fact checking?

RACHEL: I won't give advice to our colleagues at ABC at that kind of granular level — just because I also wouldn't wish this moderating job on anybody. I think they're both great journalists and I'm sure they will do a great job. But this is the kind of job that no matter how great you do, it's completely thankless and it's really difficult. And there isn't a magic formula that you can just plug in and have that be your game plan. It's going to be very hard. And no matter how well they do, they'll be criticized. And so I don't want to pile on in that way.

I do think that in a two-person debate, it's sort of up to the competitor to set the tone in terms of how much interrupting there is. That's something that the moderators can try to control. But honestly, it's the opponent that kind of sets that tone when it comes down to it. So we'll see.

We're having this debate on the heels of the most consequential presidential debate in American history. There's never been a debate that within the first five minutes determined the end of a presidency and a new lineup for the general election a month before the conventions. We never had a debate as consequential as the last one. So I think everybody's hoping that this is just going to be a normal debate. But we're all braced and ready for anything.

OLIVER: Last night, Trump vowed to impose "long term prison sentences" on those who engaged in what he claimed was "cheating and skullduggery." But this morning, if you scanned the homepages of many major news websites, the overt threat isn't anywhere to be found. What do you make of this? Do you think the news media is adequately spotlighting Trump's autocratic behavior?

RACHEL: No, I don't. There was a great piece by Parker Molloy in the New Republic this past week about sanitizing Trump's behavior. I think she called it 'sanewashing,' and taking the totality of a Trump event, Trump speech, or even a social media post, and casting it through a lens that makes it look like it was normal politics. Finding the one thing that he said that you could construe as a normal political utterance by a normal political actor, and putting that in the headline. And then leaving deep in the article, or maybe not mentioning at all, things like threatening to jail his enemies, or gravely misstating the fiscal implications of his own policies, or misunderstanding his own campaign proposals and denying his own campaign's earlier positions.

I do think that that is pattern that the news media broadly is falling into when it comes to Trump, and I think it's worth naming it and calling it out — and resisting, because it's not fair to our readers and our viewers. It's worth being true to the totality of what he is offering, rather than trying to find things that make sense, because so much of what he says on a daily basis is politically catastrophic or very radical.

OLIVER: Do you think that the threats of retribution that he has made against people like Mark Zuckerberg or some of the news media has factored into how they've treated him in the lead up to the election?

RACHEL: Oh, I don't know. That's asking me to get inside people's heads in a way that I really can't. He's threatened all of us. He's made the kinds of threats that have consequences in people's lives. And he still does it, and he does it for a reason.

It's not necessarily just because it's fun for him, although I think he enjoys it. He does it because he's trying to get different outcomes from the media, the kind of outcomes that you get by threatening people and ruining their lives. It's the kind of demagoguery that he excels at, and we shouldn't accommodate it. But we should never report on it with anything less than alarm, because it can't become the new normal in this country.

OLIVER: Do you think that if Trump loses in November, it will spell the end of Trumpism in the Republican Party?

RACHEL: When Trump is done politically, and I think that will likely be this fall, as far as I can tell, the Republican Party right now will just plan to run him a fourth time. Or go into the bunkers and pretend that he's secretly the president, even though he lost. I don't know. The fever doesn't seem to be breaking with them anytime soon. And certainly no leader has emerged in his shadow that represents any break from any of the most worrisome traits that he's brought right to this moment. So I think we're a long way off in the Republican Party becoming a new, constructive thing.

OLIVER: Especially when you think about people like Tucker Carlson interviewing Hitler apologists. It seems like the conservative movement is going down an even darker road.

RACHEL: The Holocaust denial stuff is sui generis. It is the worst red flag you can have in terms of what is happening to a political movement in our country. It's a recurring flag. Holocaust denial is an important marker for when things have gone irretrievably bad, and that marker is flying very high right now in MAGA politics. And it is not funny. It is terrible. And I'm really deeply worried about it.

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