The award-winning host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNOW and creator of the narrative podcast series Burn Order took the stage as Opening General Session speaker at the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2026 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on June 26. In a half-hour conversation with ALA President Sam Helmick, she discussed her forthcoming book, her “crush” on librarians and archivists, and her hopes for the resiliency of our public institutions.

Maddow said that writing her latest title, Department of Fate (Penguin Random House, November), an examination of how the US Department of Justice has been compromised and corrupted throughout history, got her thinking about what it takes for democracy to survive.

“[We’re] in the midst of what I think is a constitutional overthrow of our republic,” Maddow said. “You cannot make rational decisions in your own self-interest about what’s the right democratic choice for you if you don’t know what’s real…. When you lose access to knowledge, you can’t make decisions as a citizen or voter.”