-Rachel. Oh, I'm so -- -Hi, Jimmy!
-First of all, before we even get into this,
I want to thank you for coming on.
But, also, thank you for --
for just continuing to do your job
and showing up and speaking to the public because we need you.
And it's important.
And I know how hard it is with everything, the pandemic.
And you just showed up, and it was awesome what you're doing.
-Well, you know what? The public needs you, too.
I mean, we do different things,
but this thing that we do where we communicate to lots of people
through the magic television
is a thing that people want and need,
and we're blessed to be able to do it through technology
in a way that a lot of people can't do their jobs safely,
and we can.
And I feel, like, more privileged than ever
to have this kind of job.
-You've been covering the DNC
with Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace.
You guys are a great team.
I think we had some big highlight moments.
I mean, the first night was --
I think Michelle Obama's speech
was pretty flawless.
-Yeah. I mean, she's Michelle Obama and you're not.
Like, there's nobody like her in the world.
She's got this sort of centered wisdom that --
I feel like she moves people
in a way that other people don't.
And so for her to say, "Listen, I hate politics,
but I've also seen the presidency up close,
and if you think it can't get worse,
I'm here to tell you that it can."
That, like, sent a chill through me.
Then her husband speaks two nights later
and basically warns that American democracy
could end now.
-Yeah.
-That this could be the end for us.
And to hear him say that? He's Mr. Hope and Change.
Like, that was very unsettling to me.
-Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I got that, too.
I was -- I think it was more emotional, I think,
just hearing him talk and be like --
I haven't heard a speech like this in so long.
He's so good at this.
And you go like, "Oh, this is so --
I hope everyone out there sees this.
I hope every young person sees this who's going to vote
or anyone thinking about voting
or what it means or doesn't mean to them
or 'I'm not going to vote this year.
I don't know. I don't care.'"
If you watch this, you go like, "Wait. What was I thinking?
This is important. This is our right."
-And he's -- Because he is -- I mean, his brand,
his whole political message is about optimism, right?
It is about what America can be
and the arc of the moral universe
bending for justice and all those things.
For him to come out with a warning to say,
"This is really bad. We're really at risk.
Our country might not be a democracy anymore
depending on what happens in the next election
because the people in the power now are happy to do away
with democracy as our form of government."
I mean, hearing that from some jerk like me, fine.
Like, that's -- But hearing that from Barack Obama,
who is not that guy, it's just --
I just feel like -- Separate and apart
for how well they're writing the convention,
those two speeches from Michelle and Barack Obama
are going to stick with me and I think stick
with a lot of people for a long time.
-Yeah, I think he did a great job.
I thought Kamala Harris equally, if not better, at holding --
I mean, that was a tough -- You got to follow Barack Obama?
-Barack Obama. [ Laughs ] Yeah, I know.
Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. -It's the number-one rule.
-Never let anybody make you follow Barack Obama.
-That's the number-one rule.
That's where you just go, "Yeah, I'm good."
-But, yeah. I mean, essentially,
he functioned as kind of the nominating speech
for Kamala Harris.
He referred to her. He didn't make his speech about her.
But he referred to her in the speech as "my friend,"
and they are actually friends. They've have actually had
a really long political alliance and know each other.
And I think people who know that give it some heft.
But, yeah, I mean, it's also true
that having a woman of color on the ticket
for the first time ever gives you chills.
And, you know, for the Democratic Party
who have had Black women, women of color, in general,
and Black women in particular,
saving their bacon for generations now.
Like, no Black women voters, no Black women doing the work
of the Democratic Party, no Democratic politicians.
To finally have an African-American woman
holding that position
and poised to take that leadership role in the party,
it's so overdue, and it just feels good.
I mean, seeing her approval ratings among Democratic voters
is up, you know, north of 90%.
Like, oh, right. You know, good choice, Joe.
But then at the end when she said, you know,
"In not too many years from now, people will look back on this,
and they will ask us about what it meant to be alive
in this time and they will not ask us how we felt.
They will ask us, and we will tell them, what we did."
I was like -- [ Gasps ]
I felt like I was, like --
I feel like future me is judging current me right now.
And I'm in trouble because I'm --
Whatever I'm supposed to be doing,
I am definitely not doing enough.
-Oh. -And that --
I mean, that's what you want from a leader, right,
is to call on your own moral conscience,
to call on you to look inside yourself
and ask yourself and ask future self,
ask future you who you want to have been in this moment.
-I thought the whole night was like -- Phew.
-Yeah.
-I wanted to talk to you about, also --
You had the biggest interview, I think,
in the history of MSNBC?
I may be wrong. £et me know.
But, I mean, in interviewing --
Donald Trump's niece, when she had that giant book,
you got the interview, and you crushed it.
When you knew you had the interview, did you go, like,
"Okay, focus up. What are we going to talk about?"
Or was it, like, getting into the mind?
Like, finally, "Can I just get in there
and talk to me about this person"?
-Well, two things about that.
First of all, I had no idea that so many people
were going to watch that interview.
Even when I finished the interview, I was like,
"Oh, I wonder if we'll get a little bump from this."
Like -- [ Laughs ]
You know sometimes you do a show
and you're like, "That was an okay show,"
and then it, like, turns out to be a blockbuster.
-Yeah. -I had no idea.
-Yeah. -No idea at all.
But, yeah. I mean, she has a story to tell,
and that interview didn't have anything to do with me.
It was just that people wanted to hear what she had to say.
She's got a really unique perspective on the President
and what she thinks is wrong with him.
-What was the one takeaway, you think, you can go like,
"Well, if anyone heard anything,
you should hear what she said about this"?
-I think the thing that sort of chilled me the most
and that I've thought about the most since the interview
is when she said something
that actually was very similar to what Michael Cohen said
when she did his Congressional testimony
before he went to prison,
which is that she said she has absolutely no doubt
that he will not peacefully agree --
not agree to the peaceful transfer of power
at the end of his term if he loses.
And I don't know if that's true.
He's certainly been stoking that fear among people,
but for her to say,
"Listen. I've known him since I was a kid.
I've known him since I was a toddler.
And I can tell you from a life's worth of observation
and every other hard thing I've ever seen him go through,
there's no way." -Whoa.
-I feel like a lot of political observers say that,
and we sort of game it out and think about what options
will there be then for the country
if a president doesn't want to do this.
But to hear somebody who, like, knows him just say that flat-out
without any equivocation was -- kind of rattled me a little bit.
-Well, you probably heard
the rumor, too, that some people say,
"Well, I think he might even just quit and say like,
'Nope. I'm out. I already got the win.
I don't want to ever get a loss on my name.
-Yes. -This whole thing's rigged.
And that's it. Bye, guys. This country's --
You messed up. And this whole thing is rigged.'"
You must have talked about that.
-I don't know. I mean, he -- I don't know.
-Yeah. -He seems like he's running.
I don't think that -- If he quit right now,
he would be elevating Mike Pence to the office,
which is something that I can't really imagine him --
Like, it doesn't -- It's not like
it doesn't have consequences. You know what I mean?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I didn't think about that.
-And then if Pence won the election
because Trump quit and gave him --
I mean, that would be a mess for him, too.
I don't know. I don't know. -Yeah.