If She Had to, Rachel Maddow Says She'd Vote For a Republican (Sort Of)

Rachel Maddow made her first visit to Trevor Noah's The Daily Show last night and the conversation, of course, turned to politics and the upcoming election.

The pair first discussed Rep. Kevin McCarthy's abrupt pulling out of the House Speaker race, with Maddow saying:

"He's passed two bills the whole time he's been in Congress. One of them renamed a post office for the country singer Buck Owens -- and I love me some Buck Owens -- and the other bill he passed also renamed another thing. That's it -- he's never run a committee, nothing, and he has a speaking problem."

Next month, Maddow will host a "forum" (read: pseudo-debate) for the Democratic candidates in South Carolina: So far only Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley have agreed to show up.

On the subject of the Democrats, Noah asked Maddow if she thought Sanders could beat Clinton for the Democratic nomination:

"I think it would be an uphill battle, but I think anything's possible. I think that he probably is going to win New Hampshire."

In fact the race could completely change.

"There's a thing that happens in politics, and it kind of happens in life, too, which is that no matter how unlikely something looks, once you get a first win -- if you're the underdog, if you win something you're not expected to win, it can change all the other dynamics," she said. "So let's say she wins Iowa, he wins New Hampshire, (and) everybody's so shocked by the fact he wins New Hampshire that I don't know what happens then in South Carolina. It could really reorder things. He wants to win."

Finally Noah asked which Republican Maddow would vote for: "If you had to vote for one of the Republican candidates, if someone held a gun to your head because Ben Carson said (to) point it that way, who would you vote for if you had to vote for one of the main 12?"

"Uh, I'm having back pain," Maddow finally said, after an exaggerated pause. "I think I -- I honestly don't know," then after another pause, she added:

"Can I modify, can I squirrel out of the question by modifying it? If I were a Republican and I wanted to pick the best candidate for the general election, the person who would have the best chance against, probably, Hillary Clinton, I think that would still be hard... I think that might be John Kasich, (but) I don't know."

Check out the clip below: