MSNBC fans are about to get a bigger dose of its marquee host: For the first 100 days of Trump’s second presidency, “The Rachel Maddow Show,” will revert to its former five-night-a-week schedule.
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, Maddow discusses her expanded schedule and her plan to cover his second term: “We’re already seeing the freneticism of the Trump news cycle taking over, even during the transition,” she says. And she’s learned from the first term to be “ready to adapt” and focus not on his words but his actions, or what the “chaos is concealing.”
Maddow’s show has aired only on Mondays (9 EST/PST) since April 2022, and “Alex Wagner Tonight” has filled the time slot on other weeknights since August of that year. Wagner will now travel the country to report “Trumpland: The First 100 Days” segments, to air across the network’s schedule until May 1, when the current lineup is scheduled to resume.
The request came from MSNBC chief Rashida Jones, Maddow says, adding Wagner “has been itching to get out there in the country and to cover what’s coming and the impact of what Trump is going to do in the second term on the ground, from a front-line perspective.” But MSNBC’s prime-time ratings are also down 58% since the election, a sharper drop than typical post-election ratings dips, and Maddow’s Monday audience (2.3 million viewers in 2024) is significantly larger than Wagner’s (1.3 million).
Maddow, who has launched four podcasts, released another book and a documentary since moving to a weekly schedule, also spoke about the “very intense news cycle” she’s expecting from the start of a second Trump presidency and how Trump’s “shambolic” transition back to power makes news avoidance unwise.
