MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow traveled over to CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday for a three-segment interview that concluded with her hyping her new podcast about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, which she and Colbert suggested is analogous to the present day.

Colbert set Maddow up by asking, “You have a new podcast. All right. Burn Order. It’s about the Japanese internment in the U.S. in the 1940s. You’ve said that history is here to help in times of crisis. What is the story of Burn Order, and how does that history help us now?”

Maddow began her reply with a history lesson, “So, when we went to war with Japan in World War II, there were zero Japanese Americans who worked as spies for Japan. There were zero Japanese Americans who participated in any sabotage or helped Japan in the war against us in any way. There were some people in this country who were spying for Japan, but they were generally white, homegrown American fascists who liked Japan for the same reason they like Germany and Italy. Like there really—Japanese Americans were not implicated in any bad stuff at all, and military intelligence knew it, and the DOJ knew it, and the FBI knew it.”

In other interviews, Maddow has more explicitly compared internment with the Trump Administration’s deportations efforts. However, unlike Japanese Americans during the war, illegal immigrants have, by definition, done something wrong by being in the country illegally.

As for this interview, following more history, Colbert wondered, “Was anyone held—brought to justice?”

Maddow answered, “The bad guys spent their entire lives denying they had anything to do [with] it, lying about it, and pretending like they were not involved. And their families have since spent the multiple generations since pretending like those people are not members of their family. So, history has remembered them in the appropriate way.”

Moving on to the applications for today’s America, she continued, “But for me this is really useful because we have had really racist, terrible, awful, pointless policies in the past, and fighting it is worthy. You don’t know when you’re necessarily going to win. It may take a long time, but if you stick with it, ultimately history will reward the people who are righteous in these moments, and they will chase the bad guys to the ends of their days.”

Colbert concluded by declaring, “I certainly hope you are right. Thank you, Rachel.”

For all the talk about the “bad guys” from the 1940s and how it allegedly correlates to today, liberal hero Franklin Roosevelt was noticeably absent from this discussion.

Here is a transcript for the December 2-taped show:

CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

12/3/2025

12:26 AM ET

STEPHEN COLBERT: You have a new podcast.

RACHEL MADDOW: I do.

COLBERT: All right. Burn Order. It’s about the Japanese internment in the U.S. in the 1940s. You’ve said that history is here to help—

MADDOW: Yeah.

COLBERT: —in times of crisis. What is the story of Burn Order, and how does that history help us now?

MADDOW: So, when we went to war with Japan in World War II, there were zero Japanese Americans who worked as spies for Japan. There were zero Japanese Americans who participated in any sabotage or helped Japan in the war against us in any way. There were some people in this country who were spying for Japan, but they were generally white, homegrown American fascists who liked Japan for the same reason they like Germany and Italy. Like there really—Japanese Americans were not implicated in any bad stuff at all, and military intelligence knew it, and the DOJ knew it, and the FBI knew it.

And nevertheless we locked up 120,000 Americans. I mean, elderly people, men, women, children. They went and got babies out of orphanages if they thought those babies might have some Japanese blood. They went and got kids out of foster homes because they thought they might have some Japanese lineage and we had internal domestic prison camps and locked people up for years for no reason.

And it turns out that the people who did it, it wasn’t inevitable. The people who got this done knew it was wrong when they were doing it. And so they covered it up. They covered up the reason why they were doing it and they covered up how they got it done and that story is kind of a thriller because they ordered all the evidence of what they did literally burned.

They ordered all the evidence incinerated. And it was these intrepid Japanese Americans when nobody else was standing up for them, they had to do it themselves, who uncovered what really happened, exposed it all, made the U.S. Government apologize, overturned all of the court cases that made possible and ultimately got reparations for what they did. The bad guys—

COLBERT: Was anyone held—brought to justice?

MADDOW: The bad guys spent their entire lives denying they had anything to do it, lying about it and pretending like they were not involved. And their families have since spent the multiple generations since pretending like those people are not members of their family. So, history has remembered them in the appropriate way.

But for me this is really useful because we have had really racist, terrible, awful, pointless policies in the past, and fighting it is worthy. You don’t know when you’re necessarily going to win. It may take a long time, but if you stick with it, ultimately history will reward the people who are righteous in these moments, and they will chase the bad guys to the ends of their days.

COLBERT: I certainly hope you are right. Thank you, Rachel.