The new [Donald Trump] administration may not want the benefit of [Dan Fried] expertise in terms of figuring out what Russia is up to with us right now but I do. I mean, we can all benefit from it as a country as we figure out what`s going on right now with this presidency and with Russia in particular.
Rachel MaddowIf you're working on better conditions for prisoners, if you make that a popular issue and you invite mainstream media to weigh in on that subject, you're going to end up with a much more regressive public-policy environment than if you approach it in a quieter way. It's not because the public is stupid, it's just that people with only a cursory interest in something are going to have a knee-jerk reaction to it. That's impossible to explain in a cable-news media... it doesn't make sense.
Rachel MaddowBritons still commemorate the Battle of Cable Street in London. There are still pop songs in Britain that reference Sir Oswald Mosley and his black shirts.
Rachel MaddowIt makes sense in that environment that you would hold on in the U.S. government to the people who know their way around this particular block.
Rachel Maddow