Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow born April 1 1973 in Castro Valley California US is an American political commentator television host and radio personality best known as the host of The Rachel Maddow Show 2008 on the cable news channel MSNBC Maddow grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area with her father an attorney and her mother a school administrator She attended Stanford University where she earned a BA in public policy in 1994 As a senior she received the John Gardner Fellowship for public service which allowed her to work with the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco and become involved in prison AIDS advocacy During her time at Stanford she publicly came out as a lesbian by posting an open letter throughout her dormitory In 1995 Maddow went to the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar She completed her doctorate DPhil in politics in 2001 Her dissertation examined HIVAIDS and health care reform in British and American prisons Before finishing her degree Maddow returned to the United States and settled in western Massachusetts While continuing her prison AIDS advocacy and completing her dissertation she held a variety of jobs Her broadcasting career began after she answered an open audition at a local radio station in Holyoke Massachusetts for a news girl on a morning program She won the position and served as the hosts onair sidekick before eventually receiving her own show on a Northampton station In 2004 a friend passed recordings of Maddows work to producers at Air America a newly formed liberal talk radio network She was hired as a news reader and soon became cohost of Unfiltered with Lizz Winstead and Chuck D After the program ended in 2005 she was given her own weekday program The Rachel Maddow Show which later expanded from one hour to two Through her radio work she developed a reputation as a knowledgeable and policyfocused commentator While continuing on radio Maddow began appearing on MSNBC in 2005 as a guest on Tucker Carlsons political talk program where she frequently debated conservative viewpoints Over the following years she appeared regularly on various cable news and political discussion programs After Carlsons show ended in 2008 Maddow became a frequent guest host on MSNBCs Countdown with Keith Olbermann Her television program The Rachel Maddow Show premiered on MSNBC on September 8 2008 combining news coverage political commentary and interviews with figures from politics culture and academia The program quickly became one of the networks most prominent political shows In addition to broadcasting Maddow has written several books Her first Drift The Unmooring of American Military Power 2012 examined US military policy since the Vietnam War She later published Blowout Corrupted Democracy Rogue State Russia and the Richest Most Destructive Industry on Earth 2019 about the global oil and gas industry and Bag Man The Wild Crimes Audacious CoverUp and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House 2020 written with Michael Yarvitz and based on her podcast about former US vice president Spiro Agnew