Rachel Maddow is an American television news program host and liberal political commentator with a net worth of $25 million dollars. Maddow hosts The Rachel Maddow Show, a nightly television show on MSNBC, and serves as the cable network’s special event co-anchor alongside Brian Williams. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. Maddow is also famous for being the first openly lesbian news anchor for a major program in the United States.
In August 2008, MSNBC announced The Rachel Maddow Show would replace Verdict with Dan Abrams in the network’s 9 p.m. slot the following month. Following its debut, the show topped Countdown as the highest-rated show on MSNBC on several occasions. After being on air for more than a month, Maddow’s program doubled the audience that hour. This show made Maddow the first openly gay or lesbian host of a primetime news program in the United States.
In mid-May 2017, amid multiple controversies surrounding the Trump administration, MSNBC surpassed CNN and Fox News in the news ratings. For the week of May 15, The Rachel Maddow Show was the No. 1 non-sports program on cable for the first time. She has been called “America’s wonkiest anchor” who “cut through the chaos of the Trump administration – and became the most trusted name in the news.” Maddow has argued that these issues “are the most serious scandals that any president has ever faced.”
Maddow has stated that her show’s mission is to “[i]ncrease the amount of useful information in the world”. She said her rule for covering the Trump administration is: “Don’t pay attention to what they say, focus on what they do … because it’s easier to cover a fast-moving story when you’re not distracted by whatever the White House denials are.”
Maddow often begins a broadcast with a monologue, some of these have extended over twenty minutes. About this process, she has said: “The thing that defines whether or not you’re good at this work is whether you have something to say when it’s time to say something. Because you’re going to have to say something when that light goes on … I want to have something to say that people don’t already know every single night, every single segment, and that makes it hard to get the process right because that’s the only thing I care about.”
