MSNBC host Rachel Maddow kept it together on Friday night, but just barely.
Returning unexpectedly from a fishing trip in Tennessee to broadcast in the wake of news that the newly-released Mueller report will not include an indictment of President Donald Trump, Maddow spent the better part of her Friday night opening segment seemingly on the verge of tears.
Very rough night at MSNBC. Rachel Maddow looks like she’s going to cry. Chris Hayes glasses are all fogged up.
— MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) March 23, 2019
Here are the first few minutes of Maddow’s opening segment:
Calling the reason for her unexpected appearance “Mueller time,” Maddow said:
Our job tonight—as a country sort of or at least—what everybody in the country is going to be doing tonight is trying to figure out what it means that the report of special counsel Robert Mueller has finally been submitted. We’ve heard it said so many times that it was imminent, that it was done and maybe done and we didn’t know about it. Finally, it’s happened. In terms of what that means and what Mueller found, we know only the smallest little bits. This is the start of something apparently, not the end of something.
Later in the segment, the MSNBC host seemed to struggle even more to hold her composure, but she pressed through:
Maddow’s MSNBC show has long used the Russian collusion narrative to criticize the Trump administration. Last July, the MSNBC host accused Trump of serving the “interests of another country” following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (RELATED: Fake News: Rachel Maddow Falsely Claims White House Edited Putin Tape)
“For everything that we’ve been through as a country,” she said, “For every kind of trial and challenge and intrigue and embarrassment and scandal that we have been through as a nation, we haven’t ever had to reckon with the possibility that somebody has ascended to the presidency of the United States to serve the interests of another country rather than our own.”